BEIJING // Flag-waving crowds roared as the Olympic torch was paraded through China's capital today, two days before the Games begin, on a final stretch marked by patriotic pomp, a Tibet protest and an overawed Yao Ming. The flame for the Beijing Games started its journey through the host city from the Forbidden City, once home to China's emperors, held aloft by China's first man in space, Yang Liwei.
"The relay of the sacred flame of the Olympic Games displays our national spirit," Yang said, according to Xinhua news agency. People cheering "Go Olympics!" stood dozens deep near Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of the capital, brandishing white Games banners and red national flags reflecting the ardent patriotism that has accompanied the relay. "I don't think Chairman Mao would ever have imagined this," said Liu Changjiang, a retiree standing near the huge portrait of Mao Zedong, the country's founding Communist patriarch, that hangs near the Square. "Whatever the international community does, China can do it also."
Mr Liu and many others arrived at dawn to wait for the torch, turned into a symbol of defiant Chinese pride after protests over Beijing's rule in Tibet dogged earlier relays in Paris and London. Even Yao Ming, the country's idolised basketball giant, said he felt overwhelmed when handed the torch, Xinhua reported. "After lighting it, my mind went blank, and then I just wanted to hurry up running ahead," said Yao, according to Xinhua.
After a midday break, the torch resumed passing through the city's west and south and will end the day at the Temple of Heaven, where centuries ago emperors offered animal sacrifices to ensure good harvests.
Thousands of people not preselected by officials to view the relay crowded to squeeze as close as they could, often chatting excitedly in the accents of visitors from distant provinces. But many were held back from a glimpse by stringent security, with phalanxes of guards in track suits guarding torch carriers. Liu Shanhua, a 32-year-old salesman, woke at dawn to see the spectacle but was disappointed. "It's still worth it," he said. "But I really do wish I had got to see it myself. That would have been a real exciting feeling." Tens of thousands of troops, police and plain clothes security guards on Beijing streets underscored official worry about security after militants killed 16 border police in China's far northwest Xinjiang province on Monday.
Beijing's residents have been warned they will face sweeping security to prevent any more trouble ? and bad publicity ? on the last leg of the tour ahead of Friday's opening ceremony. This morning four foreigners unfurled banners demanding Tibetan independence near the Bird's Nest Stadium, where the opening ceremony will be held. Their banners declared "One World, One Dream: Free Tibet" and "Tibet will be free," the group Students for a Free Tibet said in an e-mail. The four were detained by police, Xinhua said.
Beggars and hawkers, who usually gather on street corners, were removed months ago and security authorities have also placed dissidents and potential protesters under house arrest. Wang Haizhen, a middle-aged woman who crept into the capital from the neighbouring Hebei province, said she and other aggrieved "petitioners" were being held or closely watched by police. "The Olympics are fine, but we also want our legal rights too," she said. "Not swapping one for the other."
*Reuters