As the Olympic flag was passed to Beijing’s mayor at the closing ceremony of the Athens Games last Sunday, the countdown to Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics got under way. Those Games will showcase far more than Beijing’s ability to put together venues for sports or house athletes and tourists.

They will open Beijing up for scrutiny on its handling of matters ranging from labor unrest to press censorship to Taiwan. Meanwhile, the Games are yet another test for foreign investors, who have compromised to meet the demands of doing business in China, and are still hoping for a big pay-off.

Go to the sports page for athletes’ rankings and medal counts. Here are a few political events to watch:

* Censorship and freedom of the press. International Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge is trying hard not to say anything worth censorship by the Communist Party, but there are plenty of other targets. Chinese journalists covering official abuses of power face arrest. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, violence against journalists reporting on corruption and the economy in particular is growing. Foreign reporters may face harassment or worse when covering the Games. In August, a photographer and a reporter were assaulted by police while covering the riot that followed a soccer match between China and Japan.

* Nationalism. The soccer match between China and Japan reflects a serious problem for officials. Having stoked nationalism for its own purposes, the authorities will now find it expedient, but not necessarily easy to control, during the two weeks of the 2008 Games. What will happen when athletes from South Korea, currently at odds with Beijing over an ancient territorial dispute, Japan, or for that matter America, which is bound to receive even more inflammatory propaganda in connection with its defense of Taiwan, take to the pool or field?

* Labor and property rights. Companies like Motorola, which helped subsidize Beijing’s 2001 winning bid to host the 2008 Summer Games, are used to being under the spotlight for their activities in China. But the Beijing Games will also expose foreign firms involved in building Olympic venues that involve questionable expropriations or forced evictions to scrutiny. The Beijing building boom will also throw a spotlight on Chinese labor practices, including prohibition of free trade unions and the forced labor of prisoners sentenced without due process. Foreign public relations companies had a hand in Beijing’s successful bid to host the Games, reportedly advising the government that planning a beach volleyball event in Tiananmen Square would be in poor taste. Keep a lookout to see what other kinds of PR the PRC will need and who will provide it.

* Taiwan. Beijing’s drive to acquire the military capabilities to take over or control Taiwan are developing alongside preparations for the Olympic Games. Next year, the Pentagon has said, the balance of forces in the Taiwan Strait will begin to tilt toward Beijing. A PLA general has warned that China’s ambition to take Taiwan trumps all other concerns, including foreign investment and the hosting of the Games.

So much for the moderating influence claimed by proponents of holding the games in Beijing. The Committee declined to use the leverage it had before awarding the Games by securing guarantees for the press and respect for the rights of protest and association that are bound to be exercised at the Games.

Mr. Rogge has already said that although it would be nice if Beijing were in the lead-up to the Games, he washes his hands of responsibility for doing anything about it. “The position of the IOC is that human rights should be respected in full,” Mr. Rogge has said. “But it is not up to the IOC to monitor human rights; we are not inspectors.”

Like it or not, the IOC will be associated with events surrounding the Olympics. Holding the Summer Games in a Communist Party dictatorship will be a challenge unlike anything Mr. Rogge has encountered since joining the IOC in 1991. He can choose to overlook China’s behavior, as he seems inclined to do. Or he and his colleagues on the IOC can begin to use the leverage it still has to see that the 2008 Games change China for the better.