China comes out a winner as Beijing Olympics close

The Games appeared to be doomed after getting off to a rocky start.

combined dispatches

BEIJING — China completed its stint as Olympic host Sunday with a superstar-studded closing ceremony that capped a 16-day pageant of state-of-the-art logistics and astounding athletic feats, set out for a curious world.

Tenor Placido Domingo was on hand, joining a Chinese soprano in a lyrical duet. Soccer icon David Beckham and graying Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page were there, helping London take the reins as host-to-be of the 2012 games.

In the end, China prevailed in far more than the gold-medal count.

After all of the anticipation — the foreign protests, the vows to boycott, the threat of terrorism — very little of the outside world’s attempts to shape the Beijing Olympics changed much about the Games or the government that hosted them.

Instead, China’s leaders deployed a blend of skillful design and all-encompassing control to demonstrate that their brand of governance can produce an event and a city that would awe the world.

If the Chinese government had any doubt about whether its mix of authoritarian politics and free-market economics could gain acceptance in the 21st century, more than 80 visiting heads of state provided a stamp of approval.

“The Chinese government and public have become more self-confident,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People’s University in Beijing.

“For this Olympics, they made few concessions on human rights and other things, and, in their hearts, I think China will pay less heed to Western criticism in the future.”

Only months after Chinese newspapers blared denunciations of the Dalai Lama and “hostile foreign forces,” headlines these days project a unanimously upbeat verdict: “After the Olympics, the world sees good prospects for China,” read a report in the Global Times. “Track and field competition is no longer ruled by the Americans,” read another.

It was hardly a foregone conclusion.

At one point, the Games appeared doomed to unfold under a blanket of smog.

When a batch of U.S. cyclists stepped out of the airport clad in respiratory masks, the public relations forecast looked even bleaker.

The criticisms of China’s readiness only mounted when journalists discovered that China’s pledges to provide full and open Internet access did not extend to the Web sites of Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and other frequent critics, whose sites remained blocked.

Things deteriorated far further. On the first day of competition, Tang Yongming, a deranged former factory worker, set upon on a seemingly random target: a Minnesota couple who had traveled to Beijing to watch their son-in-law coach the U.S. men’s volleyball team. Todd Bachman, 62, died from stab wounds. His wife, Barbara, also was attacked but is recovering well at the Mayo Clinic, doctors say. The condition of their guide, who also was attacked, remains unknown. Tang jumped to his death from the Drum Tower, a Beijing landmark.

But after the grimmest of beginnings, the skies over the Games cleared, literally and otherwise. The smog burned away to leave Beijing some of its clearest skies in months. Tests by the BBC proved that the city’s air met the strictest World Health Organization standard for particulate matter on more than half of the first 11 days of the Games — and exceeded Beijing’s less stringent standards every day.

The Internet never reached the same level of clarity. Stung by criticism, authorities relaxed censorship of some sensitive foreign Web sites, though many others remained blocked.

The International Olympic Committee, which had staked its reputation on guaranteeing openness for foreign media, conceded that it would apply no further pressure on China. Free access became a relative term.

Security for hundreds of thousands of visitors never again became an issue.

Night markets and cafes and bars did a brisk business without incident, while, far away, violence rumbled in China’s volatile west. In three separate incidents, suicide bombers and other attackers claimed 31 lives in China’s Xinjiang region, where members of the Uighur ethnic minority have waged a long guerrilla campaign against Beijing rule.

The mood in Beijing was pleasant. And that was not by accident.

“Before the Olympics, the most important goal was to do our best to make this the best Olympics in history,” Shi said.

“But after March [when Tibetans rioted in Lhasa], the government decided this was not realistic and they changed the slogan to ‘Launch a successful Olympics with Chinese characteristics.’”

In other words, if the Sydney Olympics bore the relaxed atmosphere of an Australian barbecue, the Beijing Games became the athletic equivalent of a Chinese banquet: efficient, formal and orderly.