China clearly sees the Olympics as a grand, glorious, $40 billion, 10,000-athlete, internationally telecast coming-out party, a chance to show off its modernizing achievements as it begins to emerge as a superpower.

But something else is happening, something that will be and already is embarrassing for this ancient nation eager for admiration, and yet, at the same time, potentially good for it and for the rest of the world.

That something is the exposure and discussion of China's daily abuse of its own people. To make room for Olympics structures, homes were destroyed and thousands displaced. We've seen the suppression of protests, the detention of dissidents and a tightening of already tight press restrictions.

The Chinese regime is increasing its "authoritarian grip over Beijing," says The Economist in an editorial that then worries that China is experiencing a terrible setback because of the Olympics.

The newsmagazine noted that freedom had been expanding in China, but that the Olympics was generating invigorated repression that had never entirely disappeared.

A professor from Portland State University differs, and in my view, has the better argument.

Bruce Gilley writes in the Wall Street Journal Asia that "holding the regime up to scrutiny" will "accelerate the ongoing values transformation needed to erode" its "popular support." He notes how the 1980 games in Moscow brought the depredations of the Soviet Union into vivid view around the world, helping to strip its government of its pretenses of legitimacy.

Discussion at permitted protest sites and stories leaked to journalists will be among the catalysts for a less oppressive government, the China expert maintained. He doesn't believe that nationalism will win out. The grievances are too many, the anger too great.

The Economist's mistake was focusing too much on the moment instead of what can flow from it as the people of China and the other four-fifths of us become more intensely and fully aware of what's amiss and what could be. The possibility of immediate, drastic change seems more than remote, to be sure, but movement toward increased liberty and a larger sense of responsibility does not.

I was once a member of an organization called the Inter American Press Association. A chief concern of the organization was and is freedom of the press in Latin America, and we would visit countries with bad records, calling witnesses to testify about conditions there while doing our best to publicize our sessions. The governments of host countries might rationalize or deny authoritarian practices, but they would also sometimes make reforms, not major ones, but would at least crawl in more democratic directions.

China has made enormous progress since the days when Mao was slaughtering millions in the name of his socialist ideals. For the sake of the Chinese people — but also for the sake of a world in which a far more powerful China will be an increasingly important player — that progress must not just continue, but continue at a swifter pace.

The Olympics just might be the means by which this happens. Let the critics roar.

— Jay Ambrose writes for Scripps Howard News Service.