Final checks as China counts down to the Olympics opening ceremony

Last Modified: 07 Aug 2008
By: Alex Thomson

Final checks continue to the lighting arrays around the main Olympic stage, the Bird's Nest, ahead of tomorrow's opening ceremony.

Millions of people have been involved in getting China here, willingly or otherwise, and billions have been spent in making it happen on schedule, or ahead of it.

Across the capital it has been a curiously quiet day of expectation and final planning and then this evening the crowds headed for Tiananmen Square as the countdown clock entered its final lap.

And Lindsey Hilsum reports as President Bush arrives in Beijing for the Games, after criticising China's human rights record.

In a speech in Bangkok the US president said the Chinese "deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings".

He praised China's economic growth, but was less complimentary about its detention of political dissidents.

His Chinese hosts will be hoping there is no more such uncomfortable talk, as they try to project the image of a "new China".