The Security Olympics

China shows the world its model for a 21st-century police state.

WHEN IT was competing to host the 2008 Olympics, China told the world that it would do so as a modernizing power that would use the Games to expand freedom of expression and "benefit the further development of our human rights cause," as the mayor of Beijing put it. The China that is emerging before Friday's opening ceremonies is something entirely different: an unapologetic autocracy that censors the Internet, imprisons nonviolent domestic critics and bulldozes anything or anyone deemed to be in the way of a state-orchestrated showcase.

No one doubts that China is a far freer country for most of its citizens today than during the dark days of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Nor did anyone expect China to transform itself into a democracy in time for the Games, as South Korea did 20 years ago. But Beijing itself nourished hopes of a loosening of political controls and promised the International Olympic Committee that it would allow full media freedom. Instead, as a host of Western human rights groups and Chinese activists has documented, the regime has moved in the opposite direction. In the run-up to the Olympics it has imprisoned more activists, cracked down harder in Tibet, denied visas to foreigners who might criticize its policies, and detained or expelled thousands of citizens considered embarrassing to the host city -- such as petitioners who traveled to Beijing to appeal against government abuses.

When the first reporters arrived at the Olympic media center last week, they found that access to Internet sites for a wide range of sponsors -- from Western news and human rights organizations to dissident Chinese groups -- had been blocked, in blatant violation of China's promise and that of IOC President Jacques Rogge. On Friday some access was restored, mostly to Western sites. But senior Chinese officials were unapologetic about their behavior. In a scripted meeting with selected journalists President Hu Jintao ignored a direct question about human rights. He deplored "politicizing the Olympic Games" even as he described them as validating "the world's trust in China" and "China's contribution to the world." Mr. Hu described China as a "socialist democracy"; his Olympic model of autocracy will hearten the African and Asian dictatorships to which China sells weapons and which it shields from international sanctions.

Sadly, much of the democratic world has chosen not to challenge this bold assertiveness by the first non-democratic country to host the Olympics since 1980. Most of the free world boycotted the Soviet-sponsored Moscow Games. But Western leaders, including President Bush, will pour into Beijing for Friday's opening ceremonies. Mr. Rogge's IOC, which tried to single out and exclude Iraq from these Olympics, has meekly gone along with Beijing's violation of its promises. An official said that the IOC agreed to allow the censorship of Internet sites "that were not considered Games-related."

After months of insisting that he would attend the Olympics strictly as a sports fan, Mr. Bush belatedly invited several Chinese human rights activists to the White House last week. But the president quickly balanced that worthy gesture with an interview with state-controlled Chinese media in which he heaped praise on Mr. Hu and said, "I have a positive view of China's rise." Does the president really have no objection to a new world power committed to state censorship, the persecution of peaceful dissent and the denial of basic rights to religious believers and ethnic minorities? If he does object, he ought to make that clear to the Chinese people and to the world, while he is in Beijing.