Torch comes to Beijing, security tightened

By Simon Denyer

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Olympic torch arrived in China's capital on Tuesday after a jubilant reception in the quake-ravaged southwest, as Beijing tries to choreograph a happy ending to its troubled international tour.

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 is the pride of the Chinese people," worker Xu Min said amid cheering crowds watching the flame in Chengdu, capital of quake-hit Sichuan province where 70,000 people died in May.

But far to the northwest, questions about dissent and China's human rights record refused to go away, after suspected Islamist separatists killed 16 policemen on Monday in what a senior local Communist Party official called a "terrorist attack".

Riot police flooded the streets in the old Silk Road city of Kashgar and stopped cars. Exiled dissident groups said many local Muslims had been rounded up, and some beaten. Japan protested after police also beat up two of its journalists there.

The government and Olympics chiefs shrugged off the attack, assuring 10,500 athletes from 205 countries they would be safe.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which promised the Games would be an "unforgettable moment in Olympic history", also tried to reassure visitors and athletes that the smog which often envelops the capital would not pose major health problems.

But not everyone was convinced.

Members of the U.S. cycling squad arrived at Beijing's swanky new airport terminal on Tuesday wearing black respiratory masks.

The IOC's medical chief said the masks were unnecessary, and the U.S. Olympic Committee urged the Chinese not to take offence.

"It was in no way intended to be disrespectful," spokesman Darryl Seibel said.

The last leg of the Olympic torch's mammoth 130-day tour starts at Beijing's Forbidden City on Wednesday, before being taken round landmarks like Tiananmen Square.

In a tradition introduced before the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the flame is lit from the sun's rays in ancient Olympia, Greece, then carried across the globe by thousands of runners.

LIGHTNING ROD

This time the tour became a lightning rod for protests around the world over China's rule of Tibet, a reaction which offended many ordinary Chinese.