An early sign?

I have been reflecting on when I had my first intimations that this year's Olympics were going to be a huge damp squib, a 'security'-heavy non-event, a foreigner-free zone.

A lot of laowai of my acquaintance seem enamoured of the theory that it was essentially a response to overseas criticism of the Tibet crackdown and the subsequent protests during the Olympic Torch Relay. I daresay that hardened government attitudes even further, but most of the 'security' measures and related visa regulations had been formulated and put into place before this April. Many of them had been at least hinted at more than a year ago.

I might have had my own private suspicions that this was how the government here was going to play it for the last 18 months or more; but these misgivings were dramatically confirmed for me early last summer. The lease on my apartment was up at the end of July. Beijing was rife with rumours of avaricious landlords already starting to bump up rents (and/or trying to get rid of their troublesome laowai tenants altogether), in anticipation of a possible Olympic bonanza the following summer. I feared I would be in an impossibly vulnerable position if I only renewed my lease for a single year, and had it expiring right on the eve of the Games. I therefore called my landlord up last June, and proposed a two-year extension of my lease - at the same rent.

Now, I would never let my landlord know this (and I hope it doesn't get back to him!), but - despite its crummy amenities - my apartment is an absolute bargain, given its huge size and enviable location (I'd probably pay at least three times as much for something similar in a laowai-targeted development). I had therefore expected something of a battle. Not a bit of it. The landlord was almost indecently eager to sign the proposed new lease.

"Hmm," I thought. "This is a pretty savvy guy. And he clearly doesn't think there is going to be any market at all for private letting to Olympic tourists next year. And possibly he's fearful of a huge crash in the rental market immediately after the Olympics."

I was rather discomfited by the discovery that my landlord could be so Cheshire-Cat pleased with the arrangement, and began to suspect that it was perhaps a poor deal for me. However, we haven't seen any significant dip in rental prices yet (rather the reverse, in fact - they are still on the up..... in complete defiance of the laws of supply & demand); and I'm quite happy that this is still a very low rent for the amount of space I've got. And it was worth burning a bit of money for the sake of some peace of mind, a reduction of sudden-eviction anxiety this summer (though not quite the elimination of it; if Chinese landlords want you out, there are all sorts of ways that they can achieve this!).

But that, I think, was when I first really knew how sluggish Olympic tourism was going to be this year. More than a year before the Games, the city's sharper landlords had all given up on there being any hope of lucrative holiday lets this August.