Photo Feature: China at the Start of the Olympics
By Iason Athanasiadis,
on ,
Briefing
BEIJING -- The games of the 29th Olympiad are shaping up as a coming out party for China, a country that seeks to show the world it has arrived as a 21st century power. But China remains a country of contradictions -- an ancient culture amid restless ambition to create a modern society, poverty alongside ostentatious wealth, and political repression in parallel with economic openness. On the eve of the opening of the games in Beijing, journalist and photographer Iason Athanasiadis visited Beijing and the northern city of Shenyang.
A man walks past Shenyang's central train station in northern China in heavy rain. China has been experimenting with controversial cloud seeding techniques to cause rainfall ahead of the Olympics and disperse pollution.
A neighborhood in Shenyang, a little-known city of 9 million people in northern China.
Heavy security on the streets of Shenyang on the eve of the Olympics.
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