There have been so many prophecies of gloom, warning and despair over China hosting the Games that it is timely to look at the other, more optimistic, side of the picture.

The Olympic Games were never conceptualized to be held only in nations with perfect human rights records or that were democratic in their political ideology. The purpose of the Games from the very first ones held in Athens in 1896 was quite clear: to celebrate the youth of the world and the underlying unity of the human family.

Over the decades, the Games have been held under the two most notorious regimes in human history. Nazi Germany held them in 1936, before Adolf Hitler's demonic killing spree across Europe had really started, and the Soviet Union hosted them in 1980, only a decade or so before it collapsed and while its armed forces were still bogged down in Afghanistan.

In 1968 a dictatorial regime in Mexico gunned down hundreds of students in Mexico City while the Games were under way. The Games continued anyway. In the next Games, in 1972, Black September Palestinian terrorists captured most of Israel's Olympic team, who were then slaughtered by their captors in a fateful shootout with German security forces.

China's right to hold the Games this year should not be in doubt: This is only the second time the Games have been held on the continent of Asia, which is the largest and most populous in the world. (In 1964 the Tokyo Games were held in Asia on the islands of Japan.) The previous occasion was the highly successful 1988 Games in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. China is the most populous nation on Earth, or in all of recorded human history to this point, for that matter, with more than 1.3 billion people -- a round 20 percent of the entire human race. It has not been involved in a full-scale war since the huge, unofficial clashes between its People's Liberation Army and the U.S. 8th Army in Korea from the end of 1950 to 1953. Its last two, much smaller border conflicts were with India in 1962 and with Vietnam in 1979.

China also certainly has the wealth, the resources and the know-how to hold the Games. Nor should the massive security crackdown it is enforcing be criticized as simply being anti-democratic or repressive. Since the awful fate of the Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, every nation that has hosted the Games has recognized the paramount importance of blanket security. China has been acting responsibly in maintaining those standards.

China is certainly hoping to do what Germany did with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and what the United States and the Soviet Union both sought to do during all the Games that were held during the Cold War -- to prove its superiority with Games that officials control very tightly and the capstone of a years-long preparation of its athletes. The world's eyes, accordingly, will be on the rival medal tallies of China and the United States.

U.S. athletes have dominated all the Games since 1996 in Atlanta, and there often has been resentment expressed in other countries around the world over the perception that the American people, their athletes and their television networks have come to look on the Games as their private preserve. Having a healthy element of competition and uncertainty restored to the Games should be a welcome development.

China asked that the Olympics open Friday for a reason: The date is 8/8/08 -- and the Games will start at 8:08 pm. In China, the number eight is considered very auspicious. There is also a Christian biblical tradition that eight is the number of resurrection and renewal, starting an auspicious new cycle after seven, the number of days in the week, of rest, completing and renewal.

On the other hand, the traditional Jewish annual day of woe and bad news for the world, the fast day of the Ninth of Av when both ancient Jewish temples were destroyed, starts Saturday night.

There are obvious causes for concern in these Games. Will China try to hijack the tremendous event for narrow nationalist purposes? At present, that seems unlikely: China does not subscribe to any racist ideology the way Nazi Germany did. More practical concerns may be the level of air pollution in Beijing, where all the open-air athletic events are being held, and the heat in Hong Kong, where the equestrian events, including the grueling three-day event, will take place.

However, no Olympic Games can be without some element of uncertainty and risk. The Games are meant to testify to the unity and brotherhood of the human family, and this year's hosts in Beijing certainly recognize that. In a world of soaring energy and food costs, international terrorism and unhealthy levels of tension between the great powers, the ideals that the great Olympic movement embodies are more precious and necessary than ever. Let the Chinese people and the world rejoice. Let the Games begin!