China lauds Games as show of confidence

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Beijing Olympics will leave China a more confident and open nation, the country's state-run media said on Monday.

The morning after the Games ended with a spectacular send-off in the Bird's Nest stadium, the official People's Daily said the 16 days in the world's gaze showed China becoming surer of itself.

"China never before entered the world's gaze in this role," said the editorial in the ruling Communist Party's chief newspaper. "The opportunity of the Olympics has allowed us to calmly show a more open and self-confident China after 30 years of reform and opening up."

The editorial and others like it in official newspapers underscored the Chinese government's hopes that the successes of the Games will bring it political credit at home and abroad.

"This great country still immersed in an Olympics honeymoon is on an emotional high," said the China Youth Daily. "Her people have never been so optimistic and self-confident, so full of faith in their country's advancement."

The nation's athletes took their gold medal tally on the final day to 51, the most any country has won since the Soviet Union in 1988 and way ahead of second-placed United States.

But official media stressed that the pride of hosting the Games, rather than the medal tally, should count most. They said the successes of the Games vindicated China against criticism and some negative foreign media reports.

Before the Games opened, China was buffeted by international worries over restive Tibet, ties with Sudan, censorship and shackles on dissent, and fears about food safety and pollution.

Some of those criticisms continued as the Games ended.

Human rights groups said China held many dissidents under house arrest and arbitrarily detained potential protesters to ensure the appearance of harmony during the Games. The government announced three "protest parks" for the Olympics but refused all applications to use them.

Two Beijing women in their seventies were sentenced to a year's "labour re-education" after applying to protest, though it was unclear if the penalty would be enforced.

"...the carefully orchestrated facade could not conceal a police state that tramples on human rights," said Sharon Hom of New York-based Human Rights in China in an emailed statement.

Amnesty International also decried the Games as an exercise in repression and said in an email that the International Olympic Committee was culpable "by turning a blind eye to the abuses".

But China's state media said the country was vindicated by the Games.

"Faced with such suspicions, accusations and unfriendliness, China -- from the state leadership level to the ordinary public -- did not accuse and complain," said the overseas edition of the People's Daily.