With a month remaining until the
opening ceremony of one of the most scrutinised Olympic Games in
history, the time has come for Beijing to deliver on seven years of
promises and billions of dollars spent.

On July 13, 2001, the state news agency Xinhua hailed
the decision to award the Olympic Games to Beijing as being a
"milestone in China’s rising international status and a historical
event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation".

Six months ago, preparations were going to plan with
gleaming new venues and infrastructure almost completely in place for
the August 8-24 Games. But violent unrest in Tibet in March followed by
global anti-Chinese protests have marred Beijing’s final countdown to
the Games.

Moreover, the threat of terrorism and pollution have presented the Communist authorities with new challenges.

However, with the 31 venues completed and the army of
migrant workers putting the finishing touches to a $40 billion upgrade
of the city’s once-creaking infrastructure, organisers are upbeat.

"We are fully prepared for the opening of the Beijing
Olympic Games," organising committee vice president Jiang Xiaoyu said
last week. "We are going to use the last 36 days to further perfect the
arrangements."

China’s rulers wanted to use the Games to promote
internal stability and show off a confident, increasingly influential
economic power to the rest of the world.

After the public relations disaster of the March 14
Tibet riots and the protest-disrupted international leg of the Olympic
torch relay, some have questioned whether China’s leaders care anymore
about external opinion.

"China wants the Olympics to be applauded by the
international community and at the same time instill a sense of pride
in the Chinese people," said Jiang Qisheng of the China chapter of
International PEN, an association founded to defend freedom of
ex-pression.

"But stability is more important. International
applause is ranked only second. If forced to choose, China would rather
have stability."

The May 12 Sichuan earthquake and the genuine
outpouring of emotion over the death of nearly 70,000 people altered
some perceptions of China, turning the award of the Olympics "from
obscene accolade to worthy reward" in the words of British commentator
Simon Jenkins.

But visa restrictions for visitors, plans to rid
Beijing of petitioners, the homeless and migrant workers as well as the
tight control of the media on "sensitive" legs of the domestic torch
relay point to obsessive stage-management.

China says it views terrorism as the biggest threat
to the Games and a 100,000-strong anti-terrorism force is already on
alert. Rights groups say Beijing is using the threat of terrorism to
suppress internal dissent, especially in the restive far-Western
regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, which is home to more than 8 million
Muslim Uighurs.

"We are worried that there will be an even more
wide-scale crackdown on the Uighur people, especially over the next
month," said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur
Congress.

"China is using the final opportunity the Olympics presents to portray Uighurs to the international community as terrorists.

"We have always opposed China holding the Olympics. We are the biggest victims of it, even more so than the Tibetans."

Free Tibet is asking British athletes to express
support for its cause by making a "T for Tibet" sign during the Games,
it said in a statement on Monday.

American, Dutch and Australian athletes have already
indicated their intention to express their concerns about human rights
during the Games.