The fact that China made visiting China during summer 2008 well-nigh impossibl ...
Agree. Now I undertsnd your statement. Yes, previous, during and well after the Olympics the foreigners were subject to frequent checks and hurdles. We suffered some of those here in Shanghai both at home as well as in our company. Of course, for those of us who are legally staying in China, there were no major problems; I was fined 500 RMB for not carrying my original passport on me, just a copy (it so happens the police officers claimed only the 1st page with the photograph was there, not the page with the vis stamp!).
I was refering to your statement that "China locked out the majority of international visitors" which in no way is accroding to the real situation.
It is of course easy to understand the difference.
Beijing as capital city serves only one function. By adminstrative, economic policy funnel wealth out of the country and concentrate it to the capital city.
Sochi as part of a remote backwater province serves only one function. To have its wealth funneled off to a distant capital.
so it isn't so difficult to imagine some differences in the quality of the infrastructure etc. The only question is why Russia would want to keep it in sochi of all places. It is not like China would ever put its olympics in Xinjiang or slightly less remote areas
seneca Post time: 2014-2-7 21:37
The Sochi Games cost Russia U.S.$ 51 billion, more than the Olympics in China in 2008, more than ...
I would suspect embezzlement to be a larger issue than bribes given the nature of this business.
You don't bribe a construction company to build something.
You give a company a large budget and the funnel large pieces of the pie to you and your cronies.
Or simply you give an inflated contract to a company which legally makes nice profits and then pay dividends to its owners. Nice, no foul play in the accounting, just regular state corruption.
seneca Post time: 2014-2-7 14:27
China locked out the majority of international visitors. Russia will only keep out homos.
disagree. China is very generous to the foreign visitor to show their traditional virtue. They prefer to show the good aspects and hide the bad things to the world. This is so called "face"
Post time 2014-2-7 11:12:15
Jack
disagree. China is very generous to the foreign visitor to show their traditional virtue. They prefer to show the good aspects and hide the bad things to the world. This is so called "face" 
