You may remember BOCOG’s last Olympic ticket-day meltdown. Well, CER is happy to report that today’s third round of Olympic ticket selling has bested last year’s utter ticket chaos with mere grinding slowness.

Your correspondent was feeling strangely optimistic arriving at the steps of his usually terror-inducing Bank of China (BOC) branch at 7:30am, and finding only a handful of people in front of him. Around 8:00, we were led inside and kindly helped (again, very strange) by bank workers to fill out our ticket request forms and register online accounts.

So far, so good.

We were given numbered slips, and there were seats to relax and chat. The line of about 50 didn’t crowd at all. Your correspondent was thinking that this had the potential to be the most pleasant BOC visit in memory.

Tickets went on sale at 9am, and two hour later, the two BOC cashiers had made their way through a whopping nine customers. Computers were unresponsive, and tellers could only stare at their screens. Supervisors in black ties were on the phones, calling BOCOG’s help line. Unsurprisingly, the help lines were busy.

“What’s going on?”

“The system is very slow. There are 17 other BOCs in Shanghai offering tickets. All over the country, people are trying to buy tickets.”

“Didn’t this happen last time?”

“Ha! No, no. Last time everything crashed after a few customers!”

Once at the ticket counter, there was confusion about which tickets were on sale. Volleyball and beach volleyball, for example, “weren’t being issued yet,” even though bank assistants had cheerfully consulted their master lists and helped us fill out requests for tickets to those events. Other sports, like basketball, were totally sold out by the time we (eighth in line) got to the counter.

Altogether, we stood at the counter for around 30 minutes. The two tellers alternately tapped their keyboards and stared at their computer screens. Three or four workers looked over their shoulders.

In the end, we did land tickets (RMB50 for sweet, men’s field hockey seats!). Friends in Beijing stopped by no less than three BOC branches and said the lines looked to be about 80-100 people deep. If those lines were moving at the pace we encountered, that would only be a 22-hour wait by our calculations. Ten-meter air rifle preliminaries, anyone?

A few good posts over on Paul Midler’s The China Game blog over the last couple days. In the first, he reproduces a letter from a reader drawing an important distinction between China’s financial and “real” economies, and how exposed each is to external forces:

One point that I think needs to be borne in mind is the difference between the financial economy and the real economy. In China’s case, the financial economy is not integrated into the global economy (you can’t move large sums in to invest or repatriate or invest-out large sums without bureaucratic approval and good reasons), which is one reason people say Western financial conditions have limited impact on China. This is why many large financial firms are clamoring to get into China, not only because it’s a promising new market but because it represents diversification in the way few overseas markets do these days. As far as the real economy of imports and exports etc. goes, I think there’s little doubt that China is significantly integrated into the global trading system, for good and for ill.

In another post, Midler highlights a welcome introduction to the (English-language) China blogosphere, Pomfret’s China written by John Pomfret of the Washington Post, formerly that paper’s China bureau chief and the author of Chinese Lessons, which is a great read. He’s only starting, and like most blogs that have mentioned T!b3t in the past several weeks, it’s already attracted swarms of comments that are as valuable for their insight into the massive support the crackdown has received in China (and by native Chinese abroad) as they are disposable for the quality of their reasoning.

Finally, there is an interesting post from today on a Chinese drug firm that may have accidentally disqualified the Greek weightlifting team from performing in the Olympics by supplying it with “tainted” health supplements:

A surprise inspection of the Greek team by the World Anti-Doping Agency revealed that 11 of the team’s athletes had unapproved substances in their systems. The Chinese firm has already apologized for providing the bad product, saying: “We send [sic] you L-tyrosine mixed with something else that it [sic] only for research purposes.”

Much of the media coverage of this past weekend’s Major League Baseball exposition games (Dodgers/Padres) in Beijing has focused on how far the game has to come in China (yes thank you, NYTimes, Chinese people were befuddled by the lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”). But after the experience, what I’ve taken away is that it’s China that has a long way to go if it wants to be ready for the games, and I’m not talking about baseball, I’m talking about the Olympics.

Upon arriving (half an hour early I might add) at the Wukesong Olympic baseball field my companions and I were sent to the end of a line that stretched from the “stadium” gate (it’s a temporary structure) to the road. Eventually we got to the head of the queue where we watched gate staff fiddle with temperamental Ticketmaster scanners before ushering us to a metal detector. Certainly annoying, given that we missed the US Ambassador’s opening pitch - which I heard didn’t even cross home plate. Then again, long lines are no rarity in China, security is essential, and I told myself it was our own fault for failing to show up earlier.

But there was no room for “self-criticisms” in the food and beverage situation. Other than two stands provided by Tim’s Texas BBQ, there was absolutely nothing to eat or drink (if there were vendors walking the stands, I didn’t see a single one). And as early as the fourth inning people were returning to their seats with reports that all food had been sold out. No ‘dogs. No chips. Not even a bag of sunflower seeds.

What a wasted opportunity to make some cash. After all, the money to be made at these events isn’t just in the ticket, but in the concessions, not to mention the advertisements on the cups and plates holding said concessions. Last year’s Midi festival got it right with ample eats: lamb chuan’rs, corn on the cob, shawarma, 5 kuai draft beers, a panoply of foreign and domestic delights, all properly abundant and overpriced. These MLB exhibition games, by contrast, were a demonstration that the Chinese have a lot to learn about how to profit off the spectacle (and spectators) of professional sports.

I’m not sure who is to blame for all of this. Blaming “China” doesn’t seem fair. Perhaps it was the people who operate the venue, perhaps it was Major League Baseball itself. But it does make you wonder, if an exposition game of an unknown sport with a non-sell-out crowd can’t go off without a hitch, what are things going to be like during the Olympics? The Olympic Games are a special event, and surely most people will recognize that long lines and other frustrations are a part of the experience. Hunger and thirst, however, shouldn’t be.

If this was a taste of what’s to come, I’ll probably just watch the Olympics from the comfort of my apartment.

Highlights from the last week of China business news.

IPO safe havens
The A-share market isn’t doing so well these days, and regulators have their hands full. It wasn’t so long ago that the CSRC was encouraging mega-IPOs to soak up liquidity in the soaring A-share markets. Now, they’re saying the opposite, telling Ping An, for example, to cut back its planned share and bond offering. Investors are piling into IPOs and ditching buying on the secondary market, as China Railway Construction Group’s US$3.1 billion Shanghai listing proved - the retail tranche was 155 times oversubscribed. The chronically underpowered SEPA actually aided the CSRC by delaying 10 domestic listings last year due to non-compliance with environmental rules. Two of the companies seeking listings have yet to be approved for IPOs.

Pitching in
Everyone needs China’s help these days. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Beijing to ask President Hu Jintao to exert more pressure on recalcitrant neighbor North Korea to get rid of its nuclear program. There’s also Sudan, China’s troublesome trading partner. The Chinese special envoy has been dispatched to the country to find a solution to its ongoing civil strife (some say genocide). If you remember, he got on the plane just days after Steven Spielberg (who did Schindler’s List - and ET) quit his advisory role with BOCOG to escape being tarred by the genocide brush. As the Sudan-Olympics-genocide pressure builds, China will be looking for ways to relieve the pain. One of those remedies is to resume bilateral human rights talks with the US: during Rice’s visit, China said it was interested in doing just that. We speculate that this announcement probably didn’t rank among the personal highlights of the meeting for President Hu.

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Highlights from the last week of China business news.

What does BOCOG pay its PR guys?
Call the spin doctors. It’s been a rough week for BOCOG, starting with Steven Spielberg’s decision to quit his job as an unpaid artistic consultant for the Olympics. “My conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual,” he said, damningly, to the Wall Street Journal. The Chinese foreign ministry and BOCOG predictably countered with a statement saying that his move was against the “Olympic spirit.” The ministry then announced that a special envoy would be sent to Darfur - good timing to quell the bad PR. Yesterday the SCMP (subscription required) reported that 15,000 Beijingers have been moved to make way for Olympics venues - that’s the official figure, anyway. Last year, an NGO in Geneva estimated that 1.5 million Beijing residents would be evicted to make way for the games.

Dicey dealings
All kinds of M&A activity this week. Singapore Airlines confirmed it wouldn’t bid again for a stake in China Eastern, following a foiled attempt in January. CITIC and Bear Stearns are renegotiating their share-swap deal, with both sides deciding to increase their stakes in one another. Under the new terms, CITIC would become Bear’s largest single shareholder, with 9.9% of the US investment bank, while Bear would hold 7.5% in CITIC. The increased stakes were needed because both banks’ stock prices had fallen since the original deal was struck. The share-swap is pending regulatory approval. They will hope that this doesn’t end up like another high-profile deal, in which Huawei and Bain have abandoned their attempt to buy 3Com for US$2.2 billion after failing to overcome opposition from a US government vetting body. The body, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, had national security concerns about the acquisition.

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… is supposed to stand for “organizing.” But, as we reported earlier in the week, the sale of the second batch of Olympics tickets “organized” by the Beijing games’ planning committee quickly turned into a debacle, with only a handful of tickets getting sold and the throngs lining up around the block at Bank of China branches around the country being told to try again another day. The reason was that people buying tickets online can request them far more quickly than their counterparts who actually go and queue up. They also happened to have the added advantage, which apparently went unnoticed by BOCOG, of being able to submit multiple requests for tickets by simply clicking a bunch of times. Our pal Imagethief has a good post on the episode here (more after the jump): (more…)

You may have read last week that International Olympic Committee head Jacques Rogge said that some Olympic events may have to be postponed if some days fail to live up to Beijing’s promises of clear blue car exhaust-free skies, for the sake of the athletes competing. Smoggy days may be depressing, but most of us without lung conditions (yet) can manage to walk around in one. How much does pollution affect world-class athletes? Slate’s frequently useful Exlpainer column is glad you asked. Here’s what they had to say:

Scientists haven’t done enough research to be sure, but it could make it impossible to break any world records. An athlete must breathe in a large amount of air during a competition—more than 20 times the amount inhaled by a normal person at rest. In Beijing, that means the athlete will be getting a super-sized dose of ozone and fine particulates, which can make respiration more difficult and reduce the amount of oxygen that gets to the muscles.  …

It is possible to develop a tolerance to ozone over just a few days, but that doesn’t mean athletes should spend extra time training in Beijing. In fact, Olympics coaches advise competitors against arriving too early and recommend wearing activated carbon filtration masks.

Yikes. Read more here.

picture from Slate

Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who campaigns tirelessly for Sudan issues, sent us an e-mail some time ago with a link to his latest New Republic story, headlined “Genocide Games.” He makes a few interesting points, some of them quite revelatory, at least for me.

Some of you may remember that President Bush accepted President Hu’s invitation to attend the Beijing Games next year during the APEC summit in Sydney earlier this month. Reeves says this would make Bush the first US president to attend an Olympics Games outside America.

Despite the controversy, President Bush announced last week that he will attend the Games. It’s an unprecedented move–apparently no American president has ever attended an Olympic Games held abroad–and China’s human rights violations make Bush’s decision seem all the more unwarranted.

Let’s see … Chelsea Clinton attended Sydney 2000 in lieu of her dad, Hillary attended Atlanta in ‘96, H.W. Bush didn’t attend Barcelona in ‘92 (not totally sure on that… but can’t find anything on Google that says otherwise)… so the last two presidents didn’t go to the Olympics. George W. didn’t go to Athens in ‘04, either - too busy clearing brush and duking it out with John Kerry, we assume.

But according to the IHT, Franklin Roosevelt attended - of all games - the Berlin Games in 1936. We can’t find any other sources that confirm the fact, though. So is Reeves right or wrong? It’s quite possible that he is right, because the Olympics always fall on the year of a presidential election, but Bush’s schedule will likely be freer than most. Unlike every president since Lyndon Johnson (and most before him), doesn’t have a horse in next year’s race - it will be the first time since 1968 that neither an incumbent president or his vice president has run. It would have been difficult for Roosevelt to get away from campaigning to go to Berlin by ship for the games. Now, if Reeves is right, why does Bush want to set such a precedent in Beijing? Why risk a potentially embarrassing PR backlash if, say, Falungong activists are arrested in Beijing during the games? It’s all very strange.

Highlights from the last week of China business news: China comes off smelling like roses at the APEC summit in Sydney, much to Bush’s chagrin; the latest macro numbers are out, and inflation isn’t getting any lower. (more…)

Highlights from the last week of China business news: The Olympics countdown begins, and spin doctors get out their toolkits; the central bank warns of more rate hikes to keep inflation in check, even as trading accounts proliferate.

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