JANE DUCKETT The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, reportedly said last weekend that the Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing in August, will change China. He suggested the media would report freely, producing greater openness and democratic reform. But is this realistic?

Outside China, many are campaigning for change. They want autonomy for Tibetans, improved human rights and democratisation, and are using the fact that Beijing is in the spotlight to exert pressure on the Chinese government. But that government's hopes for the Games are quite different. It wants them to bring enhanced status abroad and political legitimacy at home. A successful Games, held in state-of-the-art venues, would demonstrate China's growing economic might and establish its credibility as a major global player. This in turn would generate popular domestic support for a government increasingly reliant on nationalism.

As the Olympic torch relay demonstrated, many Chinese people have little sympathy for the Tibet and human-rights campaigners. Instead they have rallied to defend the Olympics against calls for boycotts and complained of the negative press that China receives, partly due to a sense of national honour. But it is also because many Chinese see the Tibet question very differently. For them, Tibet is a territorial issue viewed through the lens of the recent history of incursions and invasions by western nations and Japan. For them, the Communist Party "liberated" Tibet from serfdom. These issues loom larger than human rights, though of course in part because of media control.

Given these contrasting perspectives, a One World, One Dream slogan seems perhaps even more optimistic now than it did when the Games were first awarded to Beijing. And this is despite the May Sichuan earthquake, which brought immense international sympathy and an improved image for the Chinese government, at least temporarily.

But will the Games change China for the better? It is not clear precisely how Rogge sees the games leading democratic change. Perhaps he envisions the Chinese government seeing the benefits of media freedoms and, with new-found confidence and greater international recognition, committing to a process of democratic reform. Setting aside the unlikelihood of top-down democratisation, even Chinese people who would like a mature democracy are fearful of the short-term governance problems and economic downturn that political transition might bring. For a country unified and free of foreign domination for little more than half a century, this is a real concern - and for the many who have benefited from the recent decades of economic growth, it is an immediate one.

Then again, the Chinese government could tighten control to prevent terrorist attacks and stifle pro-democracy activism and negative reporting by the world's media. As a result, the Games would produce international tension, damage human rights and cause Chinese suspicion of western governments and international organisations.

Perhaps more likely is a scenario somewhere between this and Rogge's: the Games are reasonably successful, tensions simmer but do not boil over, and there are no immediate effects on the human rights situation or political system.

The Chinese government's response to the earthquake is a sign that political change has taken place over the past three decades. Many in the west were surprised to see leaders reacting to the disaster with open compassion, international journalists given freedom to report on the aftermath, and victims' families suing officials for badly built schools.

These responses are due as much to the gradual changes that have taken place in China since the late 1970s as they are to the Olympics. There may not have been democratisation, but the legal infrastructure necessary for meaningful democracy has improved. The current Chinese leadership is more sensitive to public opinion than in the past because of the tensions and freedoms that rapid growth have produced and because its own media are less controlled now than 30 years ago.

International influences and one-off events - from sports extravaganzas to natural disasters - can trigger sudden political shifts. But that is exceptional. For major systemic shifts to be sustained they must be founded on slower-moving domestic social transformation. If the Olympics do catalyse political change, it is this that will shape longer-term outcomes. Jane Duckett is professor of Chinese and Comparative Politics at the University of Glasgow and director of the Scottish Centre for Chinese Social Science Research. This is a version of a talk to be delivered on June 6 at the launch conference of the centre. All are welcome.