Seven years and 26 days of waiting end tonight. From the moment the Olympic cauldron is lit in the National Stadium tonight, until the curtain on the world's biggest extravaganza comes down in 16 days, it is in all our interests that the wait was worthwhile. The Games have to go off without a hitch and be a triumph for China.
Nothing is to be gained from the Olympics not being successful. Anyone with an understanding of how the leadership in Beijing works knows this to their core. A failure - however this is to be quantified, although we would immediately know it if it were to happen - would open the floodgates of Chinese nationalism. The blame game against critics and the nations from which they hail would rock global geopolitics for time immemorial.
There are, of course, some people who wish otherwise. Beijing should be put in its place, they argue, because it is using the Olympic Games to prove its fitness to be a mover and a shaker on the international stage. The nub of their argument is that to join the company of nations like Australia, Japan, the US and other previous hosts requires adopting their values towards matters such as free speech, the rule of law and the rights of minorities.
Such protagonists have any manner of means to embarrass Beijing. Tibet, Darfur and unkept promises such as unrestricted internet access for journalists and ridding Beijing skies of pollution have already been used. They could easily use the close watch being kept on foreign visitors, athletes' views on air quality, or the treatment of political prisoners to make a fresh statement. There is no shortage of issues.
China does not take criticism from the outside world kindly. Time and again it has responded with blunt and damning rhetoric full of nationalist fervour. The blame will be squarely focused on the foreigners who, it will be alleged, want to hurt the feelings of all Chinese. Such people, the leaders and state media will trumpet, are jealous of China's rise. The sole objective of their criticism, it will be explained, is to hold the country down.
Shaming and accusing are not the way to bring about change in China; it is through quiet behind-the-scenes diplomacy that this will come about. China is an old and proud nation that has prospered and grown rich in a short time. Cajoling and lecturing are not fit ways to teach it about the wider world. Change will happen on China's terms in its own good time.