Political clouds lifted for China at Games

Mon Aug 25, 2008

By Andrew Cawthorne

BEIJING (Reuters) - It could hardly have been a worse run-in to the Olympics for China's government.

Western protests over Tibet wrecked the Olympic torch's international parade, global personalities pondered whether to boycott the opening, and athletes fretted about the Beijing smog.

It all seemed to be reaching a crescendo right before the start with images of hazy skies flying round the world, militants ambushing police and journalists up in arms at blocked websites.

Then China's lucky number seems to have worked.

At eight o'clock on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the century -- the number is associated with fortune here -- the Games opened with a pyrotechnic big bang in the jaw-droppingly impressive Bird's Nest stadium.

It was as if the politics went up with the fireworks.

Sports took centre-stage, the exploits of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Team China dominating thousands of headlines.

"Leading into Beijing, everyone was talking about the politics, but I think once people got here, they really focused on the sports," America's Carl Lewis, no stranger to the Cold War politics swirling round the 1980s Olympics, told Reuters.

China's Communist leaders have been quiet during the Games, preferring to take in a few sports and gee up their athletes rather than seek attention with grand-standing or speeches.

"That is (President) Hu Jintao's style, just let things go on," said David Zweig, China expert at Hong Kong University of Science. "These Games needed to go well to help China feel confident internationally. The leaders will be thrilled."

Widely touted beforehand as one of the most politicized Games of all time with huge potential for trouble as a magnet for political protests or extremist attacks, the 16 days of competition passed off remarkably unruffled.

On track and podium, nobody so much as flashed a "T" for Tibet. Instead, Jamaican sprinter Bolt's purely sporting arrow mime is probably the best-remembered public gesture.

CHINA CHANGES GEOPOLITICS

On the streets, Beijing had its best air quality in a decade, there were plenty of sunny days, and athletes suffered more from the heat than the smog. "Nobody's died, nobody's been collapsing because of the air. And the people who turned up in the airport with masks on, they just looked stupid," a Western diplomat said.

World leaders came and went without any major incidents.

U.S. President George W. Bush may have criticized China en route, but the closest he came to controversy in situ was when a beach volleyball player offered him her backside to slap.

The International Olympic Committee pronounced China's organization a success and its medals' domination a mirror of its emerging superpower status. "The world has to learn to live with a change of geopolitical nature," IOC boss Jacques Rogge said.

Yet despite a justified aura of success, the Games were by no means plain sailing for China.

Bloggers around the world were up-in-arms as some less impressive details of the opening ceremony trickled out.

The girl who performed "Ode to the Motherland" lip-synched because the real singer was not pretty enough, some of the fireworks were super-imposed on TV, and some representatives of ethnic groups were not really from those areas.

Given that China is not unique in using such tricks -- remember Britney Spears at the MTV awards? -- international outrage quickly fell away.

There have also been raised eyebrows at some of China's childlike athletes. The IOC is investigating allegations that authorities falsified the age of a double gold-winning gymnast because she was under 16 and too young to compete.

Several attacks by suspected Muslim separatists in west China, including one on Day Two, certainly had everyone in jitters. But they also probably raised tolerance levels for the massive security presence around venues in Beijing.

Much had been said about the Olympics helping China to open up, and the Games were a milestone of sorts.

But try telling that to foreign protesters who were deported for unfurling Tibet banners, dissidents kept under house arrest, or those behind the 77 applications to use "protest parks".

Not one was approved, and two women in their seventies were sentenced to a year's "re-education" for their request. Rights groups said repression in Tibet worsened during the Games.

"I think there was over-expectation from the West," Zweig said. "China was authoritarian on the way into the Games and it will be authoritarian on the way out."

(Additional reporting by Paul Majendie; Editing by Nick Macfie)