BEIJING (AFP) — China won global plaudits Monday for staging a successful Olympics, but rights groups were critical and the United States said Beijing had missed an opportunity to improve its global human rights image.
After the Games ended Sunday with a spectacular closing ceremony, the state-run Chinese press also hailed the event as a fitting climax to three decades of phenomenal development and a showcase of modern China.
The response to the Games from Japan, China's neighbour with which it has a history of uneasy relations, was one of cautious optimism, reflecting views elsewhere around the world.
"Holding the Olympics was good in terms of China taking a more democratic path. We believe this is an irreversible path," Japanese government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.
"While the reformist, open-door policy is said to be making progress in China, it is not always leaping forward."
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke positively about the Olympics and what they meant for the world, saying the Games represented China's "public opening act" at the dawn of an Asia-Pacific century.
"I think our friends in China have hosted a highly successful Olympic Games," said Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker who was once a diplomat in Beijing and attended the Games opening ceremony.
"Let's remember that these Games have been free of violence and this is a very uncertain world that we live in."
He played down the controversies over human rights, such as the military crackdown in Tibet, that swirled around China before and during the Games.
"I don't know of a single Olympic Games in recent history which has not generated controversy of one sort or another," he said.
Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the Games were important because they had helped China open up to the world.
But he cautioned against an overly positive assessment.
"When the Chinese leadership sees the system questioned, it does not respect basic freedoms as we know them. That is why I am strictly against saying it is all good," he said in an interview with Bild newspaper.
As the host country of the next Olympics, Britain chose its words carefully, with officials staying silent on the issue of Tibet and the intimidation or harassment of dissidents to silence them during the Games.
London 2012 organising committee chief Sebastian Coe said before the closing ceremony "there wasn't a good deal wrong" with the Beijing Olympics.
"The city has opened up and people are mixing like they did in Moscow when I was there in 1980," he said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon applauded China, saying Beijing should be proud of its efforts.
But the White House said it was "disappointed" with China's handling of protests during the Games.
"It was maybe an opportunity missed for the Chinese to demonstrate their willingness to be more open and to allow more freedom of speech, freedom of religion, while the world was watching," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
He spoke after China urged foreigners to respect its laws on Monday after it deported a group of pro-Tibet activists detained in a wave of protests coinciding with the Olympics.
Eight Americans, one Tibetan-German and one Briton were quietly flown out of Beijing as a world television audience was watching the closing ceremony.
Amnesty International accused the Chinese authorities of violating human rights by preventing protests during the Games and said the International Olympic Committee had failed in its duty to hold the organisers to account.
"The Chinese authorities and the IOC had an opportunity to demonstrate human rights improvements but in most respects they failed to deliver," said Roseann Rife, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific deputy programme director.
"Forced evictions, detention of activists and restrictions on journalists should not blight another Olympics."
The Chinese press was saturated in national pride and avoided mention of controversies.
"The Games was a historic climax of three decades of China opening to the world," said the English-language China Daily, which is targeted at a foreign audience. "It was also a moment for the world to take a new look at China."
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