Beijing hosted a successful and very exciting Summer Olympics. Despite worries about smog, the 2008 games were held with great fanfare and pride. The Chinese obviously put their hearts into the enterprise.

Yet after the games ended a week ago last Sunday, the United States said it was disappointed they had not brought more "openness and tolerance" in China during the 17 days of Olympic competition.

Should we have expected any great changes? After all, China's authoritarian government wanted the spotlight to be on the Olympic events, Chinese friendliness and progress. Anything interfering with that was to be thwarted if possible.

Instead of a more tolerant China, the world glimpsed the harsh side of communist rule. The government designated three parks as protest zones and required permits for demonstrations. There were 77 applicants and not one was approved. Some applicants were detained.

Mainly foreign activists staged small illegal protests near Olympic venues. Many displayed "Free Tibet" banners before being seized by security officials, bundled into cars and put on flights out of China.

Journalists trying to cover the protests were manhandled by police, then released. Chinese authorities restricted journalists' use of the Internet after pledging open access.

China had promised that the media would have freedom to report the games. The protest parks were part of the government's way of answering criticism that China should not have been awarded the games because of its human rights abuses and suppression of dissent.

Several Chinese dissidents were silenced as part of the security crackdown during the games. Zeng Jinyan, wife of jailed human rights activist Hu Jia, was removed from Beijing and returned the day the games ended.

Two grandmothers, Wu Dianyan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, sought permits to protest inadequate compensation for their homes that were demolished for the games. They were sentenced to one year of "re-education" at a labor camp.

China is growing prosperous. It hosted a good Olympics. But another measure of a nation's greatness is how ordinary people are treated.

China's luster is diminished when its government suppresses speech and religion, stifles protests and sentences elderly people to hard labor for questioning authorities.

The world saw this, too.