China needs to do more than build grand stadiums and train teams of award-winning athletes to succeed at the Beijing Olympiad, according to the country's elder statement of Olympic sports.

The nation must also ensure that its citizens are good hosts and practice behaviors consistent with good manners and morality, He Zhenliang, the honorary president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, said yesterday in Shanghai.

"It's the rude bus passenger or a witness to an accident who fails to lend a hand that stands in our way of staging an impressive Olympiad," He said. "People are talking about showcasing our culture and the country's economic power through the extravaganza, but I think good manners should be put at the top of our agenda."

The 77-year-old presided over Beijing's final presentation to the International Olympic Committee in 2001 when the Chinese capital city won the vote to host the 2008 games.

He was in Shanghai yesterday to take part in a seminar on China's Olympic movement held by Wenhui Daily, a newspaper that's part of the Wenxin United Press Group, which also owns Shanghai Daily.

Called the patriarch of the country's modern sports development, He also said that despite China's progress as an economic power, the country still has a long way to go before it's fully infused with the Olympic spirit.

"In Chinese culture, sports are more a way to achieve self-realization than a competition," He said. "But the Olympic spirit, derived from Western culture, obviously takes an opposite view."

There is also more separation between education and sports in China than in the West, he said.

"The Olympiad can't provide a solution for all these problems once and for all, but at least it gives us an opportunity," he said.
A good example is Chinese martial arts, in which athletes perform fighting moves but do not engage in physical combat with fellow competitors.

The disciple has not been accepted as an Olympic sport so far, and He is not optimistic that it will be made part of the games in the near future.

"Unlike gymnastics and synchronized swimming, the traditional martial arts are very complicated to rate. Yes, we can simplify them and squeeze them into the Olympic family like the Koreans do with the Taekwondo. But then comes another question: Does that mean we have to compromise the essence of the sport? It's really a tricky question." 

(Shanghai Daily, March 22, 2006)