As they paraded cheerfully into the Bird’s Nest stadium in their brightly coloured cultural costumes, the 56 smiling children were described as coming from China’s 56 ethnic groups.
Their different hats, dresses and robes may indeed have represented the diversity of the world’s most populous nation. But an official from the children’s dance troupe revealed yesterday that the youngsters did not.
There were no Uighurs, no Zhuangs, no Huis, no Tujias, no Mongols and definitely no Tibetans. Indeed, in the latest in a series of manipulations that have soured memories of the spectacular opening ceremony, all 56 were revealed to be Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 per cent of the country’s 1.3 billion people.