From about 1992, three years after the crushing of the Democracy Movement in Beijing, and especially since 1995, human rights in China began to slip from foreign agendas. Monitoring of China's human rights by the UN and individual states was deflected into toothless bilateral human rights dialogues. Because of the lure of the market, China was reconstructed as a one-dimensional entity, an economic miracle. Otherwise, as one commentator put it, ''this other place wasn't just any-old-where. It was China. Exotic China. Distant and mysterious China''.

Exotic, distant and mysterious no longer. As a result of the Olympics, China has been recognised to have a more complex persona. The international gaze has now been redirected to some of the less agreeable ''externalities'' fuelling the economic miracle. And these externalities are not just problems for people in China, in Tibet and Xinjiang. They are also a problem for the rest of the world.

Who were the foreigners suffering the most from China's lack of concern with the rights of human beings? Not the journalists and the visitors. It was the subjects of the Games, the international athletes themselves. Why were they forced to give of their all in August, the hottest month in Beijing and China generally? Just to pander to the superstitions of some hardened Chinese political leaders and bureaucrats about 08.08.08.

Foreigners outside China also suffered from China's denial of the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of association. Officials and citizens of the many countries through which the Olympic flame passed in April were forced, under considerable Chinese government pressure, to defend their own right to protest against the opposition of Chinese citizens studying abroad who were rallied against them to deny that right.

Such was China's determination to protect the flame, in a manner that identified it with the Chinese nation rather than with the Olympic movement, that it even allowed a wave of anti-foreign xenophobia to penetrate China itself. In a country adept at controlling internet communications, bloggers and email writers were allowed free rein to protest against the writings of foreign journalists and scholars all in the name, ironically, of freedom of expression. How could this have been officially encouraged when thousands of foreigners were due to arrive in the country within weeks? Ironically again, the tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake appeared to save the day. Outpourings of international support were gratefully received by shocked Chinese leaders, and internal unity was achieved by encouraging all Chinese citizens to offer help to the devastated Sichuanese, thereby diverting negative anger into positive giving. Extreme manifestations of anti-foreignism within China thereupon eased. There are, however, always the exceptions. Then it does not matter what the colour of your flag or your athletic garment, you are still a foreigner deserving of hatred and retaliation.

Why the official paranoia, why the theatre, why the intense security which made life so difficult? The need for security against international terrorism, while legitimate to a degree, was exaggerated to become the official cover for manifestations of extreme xenophobia. To many conservative Chinese leaders, status is more important than goodwill; form more meaningful than substance; the perfect theatrical performance, the technically perfect Games, more important than the individual spectator's sense of wellbeing and enjoyment. This is particularly a feature of those bodies involved in the Olympics organisation, the Ministry of State Security, the Bureau of Public Security and the People's Liberation Army. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, normally the cosmopolitan, enlightened and diplomatic leader or intermediary in international events, was less in evidence.