"The Chinese government and people will uphold their commitment to the international community and do our best to hold a successful Olympic games with the full support of the international Olympic family." This is the recent reiteration Chinese President Hu Jintao made during his just-ended Japan trip.

Beijing won the bid to hold the 29th Olympic Games seven years ago. Faced with expectations of the international community, China made a solemn commitment to the world: "We are both capable and confident to make the 2008 Olympics an unforgettable, grand event."

What China has done for the Beijing Olympics in the past seven years is to honor its solemn commitment to host "a green Olympics, a high-tech Olympics and a people's Olympics" for the international community. This shows the understanding of an Orient nation with an ancient civilization about the Olympic spirit. Under the theme slogan "One world, one dream" of the Olympics, the 1.3 billion Chinese people are annotating the rich contents of the peace, friendship and progress.

To date, all Olympic arenas, which are nearing completion, have undergone appraisals by the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the air quality qualification dates in Beijing have kept rising, and the target for Olympic greening met more than a year in advance…" The best sports arenas are to be provided with the finest environment and the most convenient service. With its people and government having undertaken to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics a "characteristic and high standard event", China is precisely upholding its solemn commitment to the world as a responsible big nation.

The first-rate arenas, first-rate environment and first-rate facilities only represent the achievements China has made with the incoming opportunity provided by the Olympic Games; more important, the Beijing Olympics has become a pivot to advance the nation's social civilization and progress, as people have long aspired. In the course of preparations, participations and dedication to the Games, the Olympic spirit has entered into the Chinese people's life in a comprehensive way, tests the magnanimity for a nation's broadness and openness, and displays the vitality of a nation's unity for advancement. All this is just as the appraisal report of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said, namely, the Beijing Olympic Games will leave a unique, unmatched legacy for both China and the world at large.

In view of the history of modern Olympic Games, the Olympic spirit has not confined itself to sports arena, but constitutes the inner strength of a nation in the course of its development. Many countries that held Olympic Games have accelerated their development progress in the course of fulfilling their commitment. Both 1964 Tokyo Games and 1988 Seoul Games are twp cases in point. They have not only prompted the rapid growth of economy in Japan and the Republic of Korea, but elevated the quality of their people and the degree of their social civilization and spurred the transfer of their countries to modernized nations.

At an interval of two decades, the Olympic Games again comes to the Orient and, beyond any doubt, it will likewise boost the development of Chinese society. By resolutely adhering to the historical opportunity created the Beijing Olympics, China will propel the historical progress in building an all-round, better-off society to imbue itself with vigor and vitality and make it still more open and harmonious, and make still greater contributions. This is a response the 1.3 billion people in China have to make.

Owing to the conviction that Olympic Games will be a great event for a nation with one quarter of the global population, so IOC members cast their sacred votes to Beijing seven years ago. Seven years later today, China is upholding its solemn commitment with a more self-confident posture and more openness of mind, so as not to disappoint the world.

By a People's Daily commentator and translated the PD Online