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Time to worry about the unthinkable - failure

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China watchers from near and far are searching during these remaining months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games for analogies and dichotomies to better understand and explain the host country.

So baffling is the naked, thriving capitalism in one of the world's last surviving communist states weaved together with sparkling, wireless metropolis where citizens are loaded down with Gucci shopping bags and dirt-poor peasants stand knee-deep in their subsistence fields, that any clue as to what makes the awakening giant tick is jumped upon.

And to top it all, there's the Beijing Olympics that is supposed to be about sport but in fact is (and not for the first time) as much about politics.

More evidence of friction and harmony living cheek by jowl emerged at the Olympic Sports Centre in Chongqing, where China set out to avenge arch-rivals Japan in the East Asia Football Championship this week.

On Wednesday evening at 6.15pm, the teams were to kick off for the first time since the Chinese lost 3-1 at the Workers Stadium in Beijing in the 2004 Asian Cup final, a match made infamous for the disgraceful scenes of bad sportsmanship and unchecked nationalism among Chinese fans.

Though the inland port city on the banks of the Yangtze is not hosting any events, it is embracing the Olympic spirit.

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