Nicholas Craig column

Oct 29 2004 By Nicholas Craig Column, The Journal

New Beijing, Great Olympics" was Beijing's bid motto to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

It's coming true in spectacular style all around me, as I spend a few days in a city being transformed before my eyes.

The extraordinary energy that has gone into preparing for the Games has led to the International Olympic Committee chairman asking China to slow down so that venues do not stand unused for too long!

Amazing architecture is springing up across the city, such as the 80,000-seater, £25m National Stadium nicknamed the `birds' nest' because of its lattice work design.

New infrastructure includes a fast speed railway that will connect Beijing International Airport to the city. A new terminal will cope with an extra 17 million passengers from now to 2008.

Everyone I've met in Beijing is excited, proud and involved in the long run-up to the Games. China is determined that these will be the best Olympics ever staged, and with this level of commitment, they will probably be right.

Smog is a problem, however. Coming into Beijing, I'm struck again by the poor air, choked by car exhausts, factory emissions and dust clouds.

China has earmarked $7bn of its total $37bn Olympic budget to clean up the capital. Pre-Olympic plans call for relocation of 200 polluting Beijing factories and treatment of more than 90pc of sewage in the city's noxious canals by 2008.

It's a tall order, but one that is being addressed with typical efficiency.

I've been meeting Chinese and British companies in Beijing, including one from Gateshead which has opened a bar/restaurant thriving in a city embracing the West with enthusiasm.

UK construction companies are making the most of the massive opportunities here. Red tape and corruption are coming under control, enabling progress to be made at a phenomenal rate.

My first trip to Beijing was in 1989, the year of the uprising in Tiananmen Square. How things change. And yet the same unfeeling approach to individuals can be seen in the streets where small shop owners once traded.

Rows of shops have been bulldozed, without compensation for the owners, to make way for new developments.

They have no right of appeal - however profitably they were trading.

The fresh new face of Beijing will not be held back by the livelihoods of individual retailers.