After long months of controversy, the Olympic Summer Games are finally taking place in Beijing. However, the world’s eyes are not on the athletes but on the Chinese authorities and the way they handle the inevitable protests.

The danger is that China will overreact, as it tends to. If it does, the Olympics, instead of being a nation’s coming-out party, may leave China with a worse international image than before—something that would be bad for both the country and the rest of the world.

The manhandling on July 25 of Hong Kong journalists trying to cover chaotic scenes of people scrambling to buy Olympic tickets is a warning of what may lie ahead. The way the media is treated is particularly sensitive, as Beijing promised the International Olympic Committee—back in 2001, when it won the right to hold the Games—that the press would have total freedom to operate.

So far, signs suggest that this will not be the case. Key international Web sites, including those of the BBC and Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, were recently inaccessible to reporters in the Chinese capital, despite an official pledge that all Web sites and pages would be available.

If Beijing fails to deliver on its promise, the media will really go to town. News of censorship will dominate the front pages, and the actual sporting events will be relegated to the back pages.

The Chinese government has announced that public protests will be permitted only within three city parks during the Olympics, and that would-be demonstrators must apply for permits from the police. It remains to be seen whether foreign protesters will abide by such rules and, if they do, whether permits will be issued.

The restriction of protests to designated areas is reminiscent of what happened to the much-publicized Democracy Wall in Beijing in the late 1970s.

At that time, dissidents were permitted to hang political posters on a publicly visible brick wall, and after these displays had served the purpose of undermining Deng Xiaoping’s political rivals for power, they were banned from the streets and allowed only inside a single park. Predictably, the restrictions led to the shrivelling and death of the wall-poster movement.

Despite constraints on protesters, such is the political environment in Beijing that it would be a step forward if the authorities were to allow even limited demonstrations during the Games and to continue the practice after the Olympics end.

Of course, if the police do not approve any permits, the world will quickly see the designation of demonstration sites for the farce that it is.

In the next few weeks, during the staging of the Olympics and the Paralympics, Chinese officials must rein in their public-security people, who normally override all other departments. Beijing must understand that the worst thing that can happen is not to be embarrassed but to be caught trying to censor the media. It must simply thicken its skin and allow the media to shine lights into dark corners. If there are embarrassments, so be it.

One positive sign, ironically, is the way Beijing handled the claim by an obscure militant group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party. The group claimed credit for attacks in various parts of the country in recent months, including fatal bus bombings, and declared that it would carry out jihad against the Olympic Games.

“We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed,” the Islamic group warned. In a separate communication, it threatened suicide bombings and the use of biological weapons.

The Chinese government has been saying for months that the Olympics may be the target of terrorist attacks, especially by Muslim Uigur separatists in Xinjiang, in western China. The acknowledgment by the militant group seemed a godsend, justifying Beijing’s tough security measures.

But instead of capitalizing on these assertions, China dismissed them, saying that the Islamic organization was probably trying simply to terrorize the public and disrupt the Olympics. Prior to an August 4 attack that killed at least 16 Chinese police in Kashgar, authorities said there was no evidence so far that the various incidents were related to terrorists.

In the long run, it will give the government greater credibility each time it announces the uncovering of separatist groups or the arrest of people on suspicion of plotting against the Games.

Hopefully, China is learning that truth is the firmest pillar on which to rest its case. And the media should be given a chance to ascertain for itself the distinction between truths and falsehoods.