China's Olympic Warmup

ENLARGE PHOTO+

Older buildings are being replaced by sometimes astonishing creations, like Rem Koolhaas' cantilevered towers for CCTV (Chinese state TV).

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR for TIME

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Major world powers, however, are subject to major world campaigns. With China's growing clout and visibility has come an increased sense that it should adhere to the highest standards of international conduct. And activists have been able to use the Games as a way of holding China to account. That has been done most obviously in the case of Darfur. Critics say Beijing's support for the government of Sudan--where China is the biggest investor in the growing oil industry as well as its biggest customer, importing about two-thirds of the country's crude production last year--amounts to support for genocide in Darfur. For years, Eric Reeves, a professor of English at Smith College, has been writing articles and giving speeches on Darfur and China's role there. Then in March, actress Mia Farrow wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal calling for a boycott of what she labeled the "Genocide Olympics." The campaign may have had some effect on Chinese behavior. After using its vote on the Security Council to block U.N. intervention in Darfur for four years, Beijing reversed course in July, endorsing the creation of a force of 26,000 soldiers and police officers to uphold a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel forces.

Reeves and his colleagues in the groups seeking action on Darfur say Sudan has reneged on similar promises before and already shows signs of doing so again. So they intend to continue goading Beijing to keep pushing Khartoum. "We say to the Chinese, 'We know you think this is your moment to step onto the world stage, but we are going to rain on your parade,'" Reeves says. "They know more pressure is coming and are afraid." In the case of Darfur, says Tsinghua's Yan, "yes, the pressure worked." But he is quick to add that just because Western NGOs have had one success, they should not assume they will have another. China remains wedded to the belief that outside forces should not be allowed to dictate what a nation thinks is its own business. "China will never change its fundamental policy of nonintervention in internal affairs," says Yan. "If it did, it could legitimize intervention by the U.N. in matters such as Taiwan."

And there, in a nutshell, is perhaps the best view of China and the Olympics. The Games have brought China's behavior into the global range of vision, encouraging people the world over, including many in China, to think of the new giant in a new way. Has such scrutiny changed China? At the margin, perhaps. But in its essentials--in the deeply held belief among China's leaders that China must be allowed to develop its society, its cities, its human rights and its politics in its own way and at its own speed--not yet.