Beijing, vying for 2008 Olympics, trumpets democracy

On the first working day by inspectors evaluating Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympics, Mayor Liu Qi sought to shake off the city's dark past on Wednesday and present a new image of democracy, openness and prosperity.

The ghosts of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre helped derail the Chinese capital's bid for the 2000 Games, and concerns over human rights have dogged its latest efforts.

But in a speech to the 17 International Olympic Committee inspectors at the start of their four-day assessment, Liu insisted Beijing was a different city to the one that lost the Millennium Games in a 1993 vote.

"Compared with seven years ago, today's Beijing is even more open," he said.

He boasted of "dramatic changes in the economic prosperity of the city" and "the comprehensive development of democracy and the rule of law".

And he noted Beijing, still shunned by Western leaders seven years ago, was now an international city with 6,000 expatriates and 100,000 exchange students and visited by millions of foreign tourists every year.

Beijing is hoping to use the 2008 Games to affirm China's rise as a great power and erase the stains of the 1989 killings that turned Tiananmen into a symbol of political oppression.

City authorities have even said the square would host the Olympic beach volleyball competition.

FRESH SCRUBBED CITY

Tiananmen has been the site of numerous protests by members of the banned Falun Gong movement, including a suicide attempt by five apparent adherents last month in which a middle-aged woman burned to death.

Still, the vast plaza was reopened on Wednesday after being sealed off on Tuesday.

The 17 inspectors were due to spend four days in briefings and touring proposed Olympic sites in a technical survey they say leaves politics to those who vote in Moscow in July to decide between Beijing, Osaka, Paris, Istanbul and Toronto.

The inspectors have been greeted by a freshly scrubbed city free of hawkers, migrants, beggars, the homeless and - so far - protesters.

Jaywalkers and errant cyclists are also being scolded by traffic police as the city tries to put on its best face.

And after weeks of sub-zero temperatures, the weather has warmed up, just in time for the visit. Even the air quality in Beijing, one of the world's most polluted cities, was reasonable.

"PURER THAN PARIS"

Western human rights groups argue that draconian measures used to polish-up the usually grimy capital demonstrate that Beijing is not worthy to host the Olympics.

City leaders have sought to draw attention away from China's chequered human rights record and focus instead on the country's sporting prowess and organisational abilities.

They boast that a massive environmental clean-up will give Beijing purer air than Paris.

And they insist that the world's largest population is solidly behind the bid.

Newspapers on Wednesday displayed pictures of a mass wedding organised in honour of the Olympic bid, and flagwaving schoolchildren dubbed "little Olympic angels" patrolling the streets to whip up public enthusiasm.

Among four Chinese Olympic "ambassadors" due to brief the inspectors are the actress Gong Li and Sang Lan, the wheelchair-bound gymnast whose horrific injuries at the Goodwill Games in the United States in 1998 led to an outpouring of American public sympathy.