China opens doors to the world in style

Beijing, Friday - Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with a burst of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that celebrated ancient Chinese history and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

An army of 2,008 drummers pounded out the countdown to the Games, which mark China’s emergence from impoverished isolation to economic might, but have also galvanised critics of the Communist government’s human rights record.

Around 80 world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, joined 91,000 excited spectators in the majestic Bird’s Nest stadium for the opening show. The global television audience was expected to exceed one billion viewers.

Firecrackers rippled around the rim of the arena, thousands of red, green and blue strobe lights flickered in the auditorium and a forest of drumsticks turned a luminous red, flashing bright in the hazy, humid air.

Tianamen Square

“Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” the drummers chanted before a series giant fireworks were set off, blasting across the heart of the Chinese capital and crossing Tiananmen Square as they progressed to the Bird’s Nest.

The authorities opened Tiananmen Square, scene of a student uprising in 1989, ahead of the ceremony to let people watch the fireworks, prompting thousands of delighted Beijing residents to rush into the vast esplanade screaming “Go China!”.

Friday’s ceremony caps seven years of work that reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has boosted China’s international standing.

However, the Olympic spotlight has also cast a harsh glare on the nation of 1.3 billion people, bringing the unrest in its Tibetan region to the forefront and showing that the Communist leadership is not ready to brook any internal dissent.

The Games carry a $43 billion price tag, dwarfing the previous record of $15 billion splashed out by Athens in 2004, sweeping thousands of people out of their homes to make way for a host of state-of-the art stadiums.

National pride at the transformation of China has built steadily and the Bird’s Nest crowd roared its approval when high-stepping soldiers took the nation’s red flag from the hands of a group of small children and hoisted it above the stadium.

Formal opening

The Olympics were due to be formally opened at around 11 p.m. by the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge. The Games run until Aug. 24, with 10,500 athletes from a record 204 nations chasing 302 gold medals in 28 sports.

Locals expect Chinese athletes to underscore their country’s newfound strength by heading the medals table for the first time.

Some 14,000 performers and 29,000 firework shells have been primed for Friday’s show, with film director Zhang Yimou, whose work was once banned in China, offering up a sweeping, cinematic vision of 5,000 years of Chinese history.

The careful choreography extends well beyond the stadium. A force of 100,000 police fanned out to prevent attacks and protests, while dissidents have been kept out of sight.