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China's Games party set for "big bang" start

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08/08/2008 08:32

By Simon Denyer

BEIJING (Reuters) - China celebrates its ancient past and modern power when the Olympics open on Friday, looking to put criticism behind it as world leaders arrive in Beijing.

The opening ceremony is the culmination of seven years of hard work that reshaped the capital, and sets the seal on a sustained economic boom that has seen China emerge as a new superpower.

"The historic moment we have long awaited is arriving," President Hu Jintao told world leaders at a lunch, saying the Games were an opportunity for reconciliation across the globe.

"The world has never needed mutual understanding, mutual toleration and mutual cooperation as much as it does today."

More than 80 leaders and royals will attend the ceremony in the head-turning "Bird’s Nest" Olympic stadium, including U.S. President George W. Bush, who flew in straight after making some of his bluntest criticism on human rights.

Advertising its new economic clout, China has invested $43 billion (22.2 billion pounds) on the Games. Some $100 million, twice the 2004 Athens bill, has gone on "big bang" opening and closing ceremonies.

It starts at 8 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month -- the number appropriately symbolising fortune -- before an estimated global audience of one billion.

Some 15,000 performers and .....continued below

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29,000 fireworks will give the Games a sparkling start. Film director Zhang Yimou, whose work was once banned in China, was given the task of condensing 5,000 years of Chinese history into one show.

But the careful choreography extends beyond the stadium.

A security force of 100,000 police fanned out to prevent attacks and protests, while dissidents have been swept away.

Many are being held under house arrest, while others have fled to distant provinces or been taken on enforced "holidays" by state security minders, human rights groups and activists said.

"I can go outside, but I have to ride in the police car with my guards wherever I go," said Yu Jie, a dissident-writer speaking by telephone. "It’s absurd, because I have no interest in the Olympics, not even in watching them on television, and this is just giving me more subject-matter for critical essays."

The elements, though, have proved stubbornly hard to master.

Authorities have closed factories and pulled millions of cars off the road, but smog and haze enveloped the capital on Friday morning -- obscuring views of the futuristic skyline.

There was also a chance of showers in the evening, despite talk Beijing would use experimental technology to ward off rain.

With 12 hours to go, foreign activists issued an on-air challenge to the host city with a pirate broadcast, calling for freeing of political prisoners and lifting of censorship.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said China’s attempts to control the media "would never succeed". Their words were often drowned out by a local official broadcast.

In Hong Kong, a lone protester unfurled banners on the largest suspension bridge on Friday calling for human rights.