Olympic Torch Is Rekindled in Beijing

BEIJING — The elaborate ceremony to rekindle the Olympic torch went off without a hitch yesterday in closely guarded Tiananmen Square — with hundreds of cheering women in brightly colored T-shirts, flower-toting children, and confetti.

There were no protests in Beijing, although some are expected during the 85,000-mile world tour.

Demonstrations are expected as the torch goes to London, Paris, and San Francisco. Even stops in Kazakhstan tomorrow and Turkey on Thursday could be flash points for China's Muslim Uighur minority living abroad.

President Hu presided at the elaborate ceremony in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where the flame — carried from Greece in a lantern aboard an Air China flight — reignited the Olympic torch.

The ceremony, filled with political jargon, multicolored balloons, and confetti, was broadcast on state television 130 days before the games open. It was meant to display a confident China ready to use the Olympics to show off its growing economic and political clout. About 5,000 people attended the invitation-only event. Hundreds of seats were vacant, save for dozens of plainclothes security agents in black jackets.

The head of the Beijing organizing committee, Liu Qi, in his speech repeated that the games will be "green Olympics, high-tech Olympics, and the people's Olympics."

There were few ordinary Chinese at the ceremony, however. Roads around the square were closed, nearby subway stations were shuttered, and police barricades kept back thousands of people about a half-mile from the tiny flame.