The World Watches

China: Beijing's autocrats now complain about criticism of their "internal affairs." We say, get used to it. They asked for the Olympic Games, and now they have to endure the spotlight.

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The 2008 Olympics start Friday not far from the scene of a bloody massacre 19 years ago, when Chinese authorities crushed the Tiananmen Square uprising in the dead of night. We can say this much: There will be no convenient time for brutally crushing protests this time around. Too many are watching the government's every move, around the clock.

Lomong will flag Darfur issue.

China's ruling regime might be thinking, in fact, that it got more than it bargained for when it won the right to host the Games. It seems not fully to understand what happens when you invite the whole world into your country. It clearly wants the world's respect, but doesn't quite get how that respect is earned.

When criticized, bluntly and appropriately, by President Bush for its record of suppressing speech and religion, China could come back only with its usual boilerplate. A Foreign Ministry spokesman declared, "We firmly oppose any words or acts that interfere in other countries' internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues."

It will have to do better than that. And we don't mean finding a more elegant rebuttal to Western critics. The regime needs to bring its actual conduct of "internal affairs" up to a standard shared by the same nations it seeks to impress.

It also needs to grasp why the West is so interested in what goes on within its borders. China is growing in economic and military might, to the point where it will soon be one of a handful of great powers. It's in the world's interest for Beijing be inclined toward democracy, openness and peace rather than dictatorship and hostile isolation.

Another point already being made by protesters and Olympic athletes alike is that China's foreign policy (every bit as much as America's) is fair game. The government should be embarrassed by the fact that it is the main economic and political prop for the criminal regime of Sudan. By now it could have used its leverage to end the genocide in Darfur. Instead, it is the main obstacle to any effective action, such as serious United Nations sanctions.

The regime seems to be doing all it can to keep the subject of Sudan and Darfur out of sight during the Games. It has refused a visa to U.S. speed-skating champion Joey Cheek, well known for his role in the group Save Darfur. But even if it can keep former Olympians out, it cannot so easily stifle the athletes now participating in the Games.

Captains of the U.S. team are making their point about Sudan by having a Sudanese refugee, 1,500-meter runner Lopez Lomong, carry the American flag in the opening ceremony. The symbolism will be duly noted as a billion people watch worldwide on TV.

The Olympics have had their low points, most notably when Hitler turned the Games into a propaganda coup in 1936. Chinese leaders may have had something similar in mind this time around. But the audience is vastly greater and the media scrutiny much more aggressive these days. So let the Games begin and let freedom ring.