One of the commentators made the point after the dazzling opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics that there will never be another ceremony to match it. At least until Beijing holds another Olympic Games in, say, 20 years or so.
All the other past presentations, including Sydney’s ceremony, look like amateur hour at the local flea pit compared with the technological and theatrical stunts put on at Beijing.
The ceremony was so opulent and stunning that at the end of it, when the athletes made their march past, which is usually the highlight of the opening night, you had the feeling that Chinas had already won its Olympic Games.
It’s a cliche to make the argument that granting the Games to Beijing was a way of forcing the Communist Party regime to come to terms with being a major political and economic power, especially with the way China is governed.
So the torch relay was disrupted and Falun Gong protesters have had demonstrations, even inside China.
But watching the opening ceremony, it became clear to me that China allowed this argument to go forward as a way of encouraging the IOC to give Beijing the Games and the logistical support needed to run the events as smoothly as possible.
But the real purpose of the holding the Games, as far as the ruling regime is concerned, is to entrench the Communist Party rule in China.
The opening ceremony was all about doing just this.
Why would the strutting military people be shown? And the various ethnic communities in China were represented by groups of children.
But more importantly, the magnificence of the ceremony was a sermon to the population of China that under the rule of the Communist Party the nation is capable of putting on an event that no other nation, not even the United States with all its resources, can hope to match.
A Pew Research opinion poll has found that over 80 percent of Chinese people think that the regime is doing a good job.
My guess is that, right now, and after the Games are finished and China has a swag of medals, this number will be even higher.
In this respect, the 2008 Games resemble in some ways (but not essentially) the infamous 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin when an unscrupulous regime was able to present itself as a dynamic and achieving government to its own people, particularly, and to many others around the world with an organisational triumph of an iconic sporting event.
It beats making the trains run on time to win the hearts and minds of the people.
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