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China turns on the style

REUTERS, Beijing
Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with a burst of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history
with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.
Drums thundered, strobe lights flickered and 14,000 performers poured titrough the Bird’s Nest stadium in a dazzling extravaganza that offered up a vision of global harmony in line with the Games' motto "OneWorld One Dream."
Around 80 world leaders watched the show which celebrated imperial China, and skipped the fraught 20th century, when civil war. the Japanese invasion and hardline Communist rule left the nation mired in poverty.
"Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” an army of 2,008 drummers chanted, quoting die celebrated sage Confucius.
Friday's ceremony caps seven years of work that has reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has turned the country into the world's fourth largest economy.
However, the Olympic spotlight has also cast a harsh glare on the vast Asian nation, bringing the unrest in its Tibetan region to a
wide audience and showing that China's leadership is not ready to brook any internal dissent.
Deafening firecrackers launched Friday's ceremony before a series of giant fireworks in the form of footsteps were set off, blasting above the heart of the capital, crossing Tiananmen Square as they progressed to die steel-latticed Bird's Nest.
The authorities opened the vast square, scene of a student uprising in 1989, to let people watch the pyrotechnics, prompting thousands of delighted Beijing residents to rush into the esplanade screaming "Go China!."
The Games carry a $43 billion price tag. dwarfing the previous record of $15 billion splashed out
by Athens in 2004, sweeping thousands of people out of their homes to make way for a host of state-of-the art stadiums.
National pride at the transfor-madon of China has built steadily and the crowd roared its approval when high-stepping soldiers took die nation's red flag from the hands of a group of small children and hoisted it above the stadium.
The Games were due to be formally opened at around 11 p.m. by the president of the International Olympic Committee. Jacques Rogge. They run until August 24, with 10,500 athletes from a record 204 nations chasing 302 gold medals in 28 sports.
Locals expect Chinese athletes to underscore their country's
newfound strength by heading die medals table for the first time.
Friday's show, directed by local film maker Zhang Yimou, reached its climax before the athletes' parade, when a gigantic sphere representing the earth rose from the floor of die stadium, which filled with twinkling starlight.
Signs flashed up warning of the dangers of global warming.
The world's most populous nation has thus far resisted calls to curb its carbon emissions as it concentrates on growth, and its promise to stage a "Green Games" has been belied by the hazy pollution which has clogged Beijing in recent days.
The careful choreography of the
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