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Preface
The opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics on August 8, 2008, at the Beijing National Stadium marked China’s formal ascent on to the world stage as a leading nation, proud of its ancient culture and significant accomplishments. Watched by one-third of the world, the glittery opening ceremony was an announcement that a new China had been born. The advent of the twenty-first century marked a rising China—now with the world’s second largest economy, China had also surpassed Japan to become the biggest foreign holder of United States Treasury bonds.
The opening ceremony showcased China’s millennia of triumphs, but the tumultuous twentieth century, during which China experienced revolution, war, and the founding of the People’s Republic of China, was conspicuously missing. The omission of China’s socialist-communist period and the absence of Mao Zedong iconography showed a nation determined to forget, if not erase, the most recent bloody chapter of its existence. The absence of Mao iconography during the ceremony reveals how the Chinese government does not want the Maoist period—which many would categorize as isolating, oppressive, militant, and