By David Ferguson

Beijing threw open its gates to welcome the world last night in an Olympic Opening Ceremony that was a dramatic and spectacular assault on all the senses.

The carefully choreographed event represented a determined effort by the country to show to its critics the best of ancient and modern China, and give the Olympics the best possible launch.

In recent years the Opening Ceremony has become as competitive as the Games themselves, as each succeeding host city feels the obligation to try to surpass the efforts of its predecessors. With a display that represented a significant investment of funds, but much more so an enormous application of creative thought, planning, time, effort, and care, Beijing has set the standard very high for London in 2012.

From the start of the ceremony, with a lighted countdown in Chinese and Arabic numerals provided by thousands of strobe-lit drummers, to the climax, when the hugely popular gymnast Li Ning ran a stunning, wire-suspended circuit of the rim of the stadium to light the torch, each element of the event built on the previous one in a splendid crescendo.

The strobe drumming that opened the ceremony was extremely effective, especially the points at which the white drums were suddenly extinguished to leave the stadium black apart from the red-lit drumsticks. This was followed by the first of a number of firework detonations which extended from the Bird's Nest stadium itself all the way to Tian'anmen and back. This binding of the ceremony in the stadium with the rest of the city was clever and well-conceived, allowing vast numbers of those who had not been able to get hold of tickets to become part of the event.

Next on the schedule was an impressive representation of the Olympic Rings that rose dramatically into the air, while ethereal women flew around it and a young girl in a red dress gave a beautiful rendition of a traditional Chinese song. She was surrounded by other children dressed in the costumes of China's 56 nationalities.

There then followed a passage celebrating four of ancient China's great contributions to civilization: the inventions of paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. These were presented by way of a huge scroll over 70 meters long, cleverly underlit to produce a screen on which lights, colors and images played in an accompaniment to the dancers and musicians who told the story. A substantial section of this part of the program was devoted to the teachings of Confucius, portrayed by thousands of devoted 'students'. The printing section too was especially well-done – hundreds of man-sized blocks producing a series of messages of peace and friendship in old Chinese characters.

The account of China's history continued with images of Chinese Opera, the Silk Road, and Tea ships, and concluded with the rising of the Red Dragon Pillars from the ground in a symbol of the strength of Old China.

The section on modern China commenced with a piano recital from Lang Lang, a popular Chinese entertainer who overcame initial rejection to teach himself to play the piano to the highest standard, followed by another spectacular mass display in which each of the thousands of performers was dressed in an electric suit whose lighting changed color to produce a series of images, the most impressive of which was a huge flying dove of peace that was mirrored by a mass flight of virtual doves around the rim of the stadium. This was succeeded by what is likely to become one of the enduring images of the ceremony – the kite girl – a young girl and her kite flying over a representation of the Bird's Nest Stadium itself formed from the bodies of the performers on the ground below.