Ceremony shows China is reaching out

One-fifth of humanity issued a heartfelt message on Friday night to the other four-fifths - we are ready to join you.

That was the unspoken but unmistakable signal from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, delivered to the world on behalf of China's 1.3 billion people.

Sport's most celebrated set-piece, this one beamed to billions from Beijing's 91,000-seat Bird's Nest stadium, underlined China's emergence from an isolationist past to a deepening engagement - in commerce and politics as well as sport - with the planet it numerically dominates.

Human rights and pollution, two of the thorny issues that will shape China's future as a global citizen and superpower, were temporarily shelved as the communist giant threw an exuberant party for the whole world.

And what a party it was.

It featured a dazzling array of special effects which had giant scrolls of paper seemingly floating into the ether and one graceful nine-year-old girl clad in red flying through the night sky in echoes of Nikki Webster at Sydney eight years ago.

US President George Bush, who had some sharp exchanges over human rights with the Chinese leadership this week, was in celebration mode, along with over 20 world leaders including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Russia's Vladimir Putin, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Japan's Yasuo Fukuda, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak.

The sheer scale of all things Chinese, from the population down, helped make this Olympic opener different from all others, a fact IOC President Jacques Rogge acknowledged had helped Beijing to win the Games.

The ceremony featured 14,000 performers, 9000 of them from the Peoples Liberation Army, 3000 scholar disciples of Confucius, 500 amplifiers, 300 tonnes of lighting equipment and 40 tonnes of steel ropes carrying suspended acrobats.

It set the tone for 16 days of competition among athletes from a record 204 countries.

In pointing to that future, China drew heavily on its past, as only a nation with a 5,000-year culture can do.

The Olympic extravaganza, directed by China's Oscar-nominated movie-maker Zhang Yimou, featured iconic images from China's dynastic history, including spectacular fireworks, flags, lights, Chinese opera and martial arts.

The ceremony started on the dot at eight o'clock local time (2200 AEST) on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008.

Eight is considered China's lucky number, as the word for eight sounds like wealth, and Olympic fever propelled an estimated 10,000 couples down the aisle to capitalise on what the nation hoped would be China's luckiest day.

It must have worked - there was not a drop of rain, which was the organisers' greatest fear.

The drama of the countdown was heightened by the thundering of 2008 bronze fous, ancient percussion instruments dating back to the Xia dynasty, China's first, in 2070 BC, and the frantic waving of a sea of red flags.

The number of fous represented the year - and another homage to good luck.

The Chinese invented fireworks, so a rainbow of 20,000 explosions throughout the night was hardly a surprise, though the effects stunned even the locals.

A series of 29 fireworks "footprints" in the sky passed through Tiananmen Square, where pro-democracy demonstrations were brutally crushed 19 years ago, forcing the closure of the politically sensitive heart of Beijing.

President Hu Jintao sung proudly during the Chinese national anthem at a Games where China is tipped to come close to pushing the United States off its perch as the number one Olympic nation.

The ceremony featured images of the Great Wall of China, peach blossoms, the famous Terracotta Soldiers, China's ancient script writing and the Silk Road, for centuries the vital economic and cultural link between China and the West.

It also included a world globe 18 metres in diameter during a dream sequence illustrating the Beijing motto "One World One Dream", accompanied by the theme song featuring Britain's Sarah Brightman, declaring: "You and me, From one world, We are family."

Thanks to the vagaries of the Mandarin alphabet, the 200-plus Australian athletes in the traditional march-past were due to enter the Bird's Nest stadium third from last.

Flag-bearer James Tomkins, the rower appearing at his sixth Games, said before marching out he felt "pumped, over the moon, floating".

An almighty roar was to greet the host nation, marching in last to get China's Games underway after a preparation of seven years.