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Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with volleys of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

Drums thundered, firecrackers exploded and 14,000 performers poured through the Bird’s Nest stadium in a dazzling extravaganza that offered up a vision of global harmony echoing the Games’ motto "One World One Dream."

Around 80 world leaders watched the show which celebrated the achievements of imperial China, totally ignoring the fraught 20th century, when civil war, the Japanese invasion and hardline Communist rule left the nation mired in poverty.

"Friends have come from afar, how happy we are," an army of 2,008 drummers chanted, quoting the celebrated sage Confucius.

Friday’s ceremony caps seven years of work that has reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has turned the country into the world’s fourth largest economy.

However, the Olympic spotlight has also cast a harsh glare on the vast Asian nation, bringing the unrest in its Tibetan region to a wide audience and showing that China’s leadership is not ready to brook any internal dissent.

Pounding drums launched Friday’s ceremony on a hot and humid evening before giant fireworks in the form of footsteps blasted above the heart of the capital, crossing Tiananmen Square as they progressed to the steel-latticed Bird’s Nest.

The authorities opened the vast square, scene of a doomed student uprising in 1989, to let people watch the pyrotechnics, prompting thousands of delighted Beijing residents to rush into the esplanade screaming "Go China!."

Record cost

The Games carry a $43 billion price tag, dwarfing the $15 billion splashed out by Athens in 2004, and run until August 24, with 10,500 athletes from a record 204 nations chasing 302 gold medals in 28 sports.

Chinese President Hu Jintao declared the Games open.

Befittingly for the world’s most populous nation, Friday’s show unleashed wave upon wave of humanity into the arena, reveling in past glories, like the invention of gunpowder, but also more modern triumphs, like putting astronauts into space.

The careful choreography of the ceremony extended well beyond the stadium and 100,000 police fanned out to prevent attacks and protests, while dissidents have been kept out of sight.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued an appeal at the ceremony calling on warring nations to honor a traditional truce during the Games, but his message went unheeded with fierce fighting in Georgia during the day involving Russian forces.

Further denting the Olympic ideal of harmony, the two Koreas failed to agree to march at the opening as a unified team even though they managed that in 2004 and 2000.

The 91,000-strong crowd saved its largest roar of the evening for the entry of the Chinese team, which is confidently expected to top the medals table for the first time and was headed onto the field by basketball player Yao Ming.

Yao was accompanied by a young boy who survived an earthquake in the southwest of the country in May which killed some 70,000.

"For a long time, China has dreamed of opening its doors and inviting the world’s athletes to Beijing for the Olympic Games," Jacques Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said. "Tonight that dream comes true. Congratulations, Beijing!"