Through its spies it seeks Western nuclear technology, which in turn finds its way to places it should not. From submarines to jets to space — not to mention its massive standing army — it seeks military primacy.

An oppressed people, a brilliant people, wouldn’t tolerate all that. They would overthrow the government.

Think Mao. Think the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards, the Little Red Books, and “Let 1,000 Flowers Bloom.” Think Tiananmen Square. To the unsmiling Chinese authorities, free elections are an alien concept. And “human rights,” so called, hardly exist — though President Bush insists he will discuss them yet again when he attends the Beijing Olympics.

They hardly exist?

Roger that. Regarding the Olympics alone, Chinese censors often are hassling the press (even detaining certain journalists, especially from Hong Kong), limiting press movement, and — despite pledges of unfettered Internet access — blocking dissident, pro-democratic, free Chinese Web sites.

And let’s not forget Beijing’s air pollution, which China pledged to cleanse before the games begin. Since winning the Olympic contract in 2001, China has spent (it says) $17 billion trying to rid the air of pollutants and particulates. Yet even now the Beijing air exceeds even China’s health standards — and the athletes are arriving. From nearby roads, on some days the “Bird’s Nest” stadium can barely be discerned through gloomy leaden haze.

Authorities have relocated some industrial plants, dynamited others, halted construction, forced millions of cars off the roads — all to little effect. And they promise to do more. Yet inclining toward despair, they’re beginning to blame that perennial fall guy — the weather. You get the picture: The air thing is all the fault of the humidity and heat.

If there had been television, would you have watched the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Munich?

Probably not.

And missed Jesse Owens’ heroics?

That would have been a risk. But the International Olympic Committee, which only just now has allowed two Iraqi tracksters to participate in Beijing (but not five Iraqi archers, rowers, and weightlifters), has cautioned visiting athletes against personal displays of patriotism or dissent from China’s dissing of human rights.

So what will you do?

Take some good books to a place with no TV — and there pull for the home guys privately while glomming nature and watching the lazy river snooze by.