On the night of July 13, 2001, tens of thousands of people poured into Tiananmen Square to celebrate the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing. Firecrackers exploded, flags flew high, and cars honked wildly. It was a moment to be savored. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders exhorted the crowds to work together to prepare for the Olympics. “Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the international community,” Wang Wei, a senior Beijing Olympic official, proclaimed. The official Xinhua News Agency reveled in the moment, calling the decision “another milestone in China’s rising international status and a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation.”

In Foreign Affairs, Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal argue that “failure to plan for predictable problems has turned China’s coming-out party into an embarrassment.” (The authors quote, for instance, Ai Weiwei, an artistic consultant for Beijing’s signature “Bird’s Nest” stadium, who told the German magazine Der Spiegel, “The government wants to use these games to celebrate itself and its policy of opening up China …. By now, it has become clear to me that this hope of liberalization cannot be fulfilled …. The system won’t allow it.”)