Mainland leaders greeted the new millennium in a burst of patriotism while ordinary Beijingers crowded into shopping centres and thronged around Tiananmen Square.
Heavenly choirs led by operatic tenors sang song after song calling on the people to 'love China' and 'love the motherland' in a pageant of kitsch staged at the front of the capital's Millennium Monument.
Against a background of drums, trumpets and cymbals, massed ranks of adults and children waved red flags while yellow and green dragon dancers performed. More than 1,000 children recited an Ode to the Century, praising the Communist Party and eulogising the Chinese race.
Around the monument, men in coat tails waltzed their partners, dressed in bright yellow gowns, while children in red cloaks raced around in roller blades.
Politburo members arrived dressed in sombre black coats and stood to attention to sing the national anthem as the Chinese flag was raised to the accompaniment of a military band. A student dressed in white arrived bearing a torch from Zhoukoudian, the home of Peking man, accompanied by eight young women bearing wreaths.
A Mongolian student from Beijing University, named Dabenna, was chosen to represent the common heritage of the nation's 56 nationalities.
President Jiang Zemin stepped forward to read a speech in which he said that only by summing up history can a people move ahead.
