When Leaders Come to Town, Beijing Puts on a Good Face

This week Beijing is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a big meeting of CEOs and world leaders. Obama is coming to town, Putin is on his way and John Kerry already has been here.

Beijing makes the skies turn blue for APEC. 

Losing face is a huge no-no in Chinese tradition and many individuals will do anything to save face. And that's just what the Beijing government has done leading up to APEC.


For starters, many schools have been shut down and half the cars that normally are on the road have been restricted, with even and odd numbered license plates alternating days on the road. Construction has been halted, as have factories both in and around Beijing. Much of this is because the government wants blue skies for the world leaders to see sans pollution. On Chinese social media there even was talk of a new color called "APEC blue."

Other businesses, too, have been upping their game. The local DVD store that we usually go to for new movie releases has shifted the new, pirated DVDs to a local basement and is showing only old movies in its storefronts, in case some leader happens to walk by and wonder whether the DVD store is legit. And Scott saw workers repaving lines on the road at 4 a.m. one night. (He was up to watch a football game, naturally).

Subways are much more crowded than usual since half the cars aren't allowed to be on the road, so extra security has been added and people wait in line to enter the station sometimes. Even marriage licenses aren't being given this week, as many public workers have an under-the-radar holiday.

It's beautiful right now, a cool 50 degrees and sunny, blue skies. But it's all fake, a good looking face that the government is putting on. It reminds of stories of bosses visiting factories to make sure there child labor isn't occurring and on the day they're visiting, children just happen to not be working.

What's interesting is how quickly the government can mobilize and eradicate so much of China's pollution. Sure, it disrupts daily life -- no school, some people not working, not able to get around. And yet the second all the leaders and CEO depart the capital, all will be back to normal -- pollution, traffic jams, DVD stores hawking the latest U.S. movie.

I have mixed feelings of it all; sure, I'm loving the clear skies and air, but it's all window dressing. I just hope the leaders and CEOs who are in town realize what they're seeing isn't typical reality here.