Will the Olympic Games change China, or will China change the Olympic Games, ask Dr. Susan Brownell, in the first article of Olympic Review's new series of Olympic research.

China's desire to host the Olympic Games is nearly as old as the modern Games themselves. Around 1907, the Chinese YMCA began a campaign to stir up patriotism by asking, "When will China be able to invite all the world to Peking for an International Olympic contest...?"

Cover of the magazine: Olympic Review.[BOCOG]

One hundred years later, at the eighth evening hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008, the Opening Ceremony for the Beijing Olympic Games will begin (eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture, symbolising prosperity and development). The Olympic Games will be hosted by the least Westernised nation in the world to yet host them, the heart of Far Eastern civilisation, the most populous nation in the world. It will be only the third time the Olympic Summer Games have been held outside the Western hemisphere - after Tokyo 1964 and Seoul 1988 - and it will be the greatest-ever meeting of East and West in peacetime. It will mark a pivotal moment when the Olympic Movement begins to attain an unprecedented universalism, which is expressed in the slogan "One World One Dream".

Surely this should be a moment to celebrate the global culture of the 21st century. But Beijing's bid was met with hostility in some quarters among Western politicians, media, human rights groups, and even some everyday people. When Beijing won the bid and it was shown live on Chinese television, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate, and the optimism about the Olympic Games and the future of China becomes more fervent as the Games draw near.

So why wasn't there widespread celebration in the West? People in the developed Western countries seem fixated on the question of whether the Olympic Games will change China. Will they improve China's human rights record? Will they open China up more to the outside world? Will they bring democracy to China?

Can the Olympic Games really bring about social change?

We still lack a good scientific understanding of the Olympic Movement as a social movement capable of effecting social change. Pierre de Coubertin had a vision that still shapes the Olympic Movement today, but in this age of science people expect concrete proof that a vision is being carried out. Beijing will be the first host city to produce a full Olympic Games Global Impact (OGGI) report. This is an important step, but OGGI will not assess the cultural fields that might be most interesting for the Chinese Olympic Games. For example, it will not measure the effects on cultural heritage - such as the preservation of culture to enrich the Olympic cultural programme versus the destruction of historical sites for new construction, the growth of traditional sports versus their replacement by Olympic sports, or the effect of the Olympic Games on traditional cultural beliefs.

The greatest legacy of the Beijing Games will be a largely intangible one - its human and cultural legacy. This goal is expressed in one of the three themes for the Olympic Games, Ren Wen Ao Yun, which has been translated into English as the "humanistic" or "people's" Games. Hosting the Olympic Games will require China to "link up with international standards," accelerating the process that already began over 100 years ago. The changes that occur will not be those forced upon China by others, but will be those that China voluntarily seeks out so that it may play a key role in the global society of the 21st century.

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