China made a secret deal with International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge to support his election to the post in return for Rogge's lobbying for Beijing to win the 2008 Olympics, according to an explosive new book by China's sports minister at the time, Yuan Weimin.

The former minister says Rogge explicitly bargained with him to win Chinese votes at the Moscow meeting of the IOC in 2001, which awarded the games to Beijing and three days later elected Rogge as president.

The games took place last year under stifling security after worldwide protests over China’s human rights record and demonstrations along the route of the Olympic torch.

Rogge, 67, a Belgian surgeon and former Olympian, has just won-re-election to a second and final term as head of the IOC until 2013.

The IOC chief says the 2008 games were a triumph for the Olympic movement and has defended the choice of Beijing as a decision that engaged China with the world and advanced the cause of reform.

According to extracts from the sport minister's memoirs translated by The Sunday Times, Beijing won thanks to a deceptive strategy to outwit its rivals based on the principles of ancient Chinese warfare.

The book, titled “Yuan Weimin and the winds and clouds of the world of sports”, tells how China’s ruling politburo approved a plan to put Rogge into the top job as a payoff to win European votes for Beijing.

In turn, that meant deceiving their fellow Asian nations, who hoped that an Asian could lead the IOC and who believed they could count on Chinese support.

“Although we didn’t have a written contract with Rogge we had a private understanding,” Yuan writes.

His book lifts the veil on months of backroom bargaining that went on as nations sought to influence the crucial decision – a process that has rarely, if ever, been disclosed by a participant.

The other contenders were Toronto, Paris and Istanbul.

As the clock ticked down to the Moscow decision, Yuan says he and Beijing Mayor Liu Qi went to see Rogge in a discreet apartment at a Geneva conference centre.

During the discussion in Switzerland, Rogge explained that one of his reasons to back the Chinese was that if Paris won the 2008 games it would be bad for his campaign to be IOC President, Yuan says.

"We expressed our opinion to Rogge that we hoped Rogge and his friends would support Beijing. Rogge said he hoped that China's three IOC delegates and China's friends would support him," Yuan writes.

The Chinese campaign went into overdrive after that encounter, led by Li Lanqing, one of the top nine members of the Communist Party.

As lobbyists, sports officials, sponsors and governments vied for advantage, the politics became duplicitous.

"Rogge told me he was very grateful to me for supporting him in his run for president and he would completely support China's bid to host the Olympics,” writes Yuan.

“But he hoped China would understand that he could not publicly express his stand and his opinion because he was chairman of the European Olympic Committee and both Paris and Istanbul were in Europe - but that none the less he would work for Beijing."

According to the former minister’s account, Rogge needed reassurance that the Chinese would keep their side of the bargain.

"Of course we made the promise that China would persuade its friends to support Rogge." Yuan writes, "in return we got Rogge's support in winning over the European members."

But the Chinese plan nearly went wrong when their own chief delegate, He Zhenliang, showed signs of voting for a fellow Asian candidate, South Korea's Kim Un-yong.

Yuan says the leadership was furious with He and ordered all three of China's IOC delegates to vote for Rogge.

China was awarded the 2008 Olympics on May 13, 2001, and Rogge was elected president on May 16.

The Chinese government spent more than 30 billion pounds on hosting the games, more than its annual education budget, calculated the Hong Kong-based magazine Kaifang,.

It staged a display of precision and authority to stage a flawless games that became an expression of national pride.

Doubts about faked fireworks at the opening ceremony and a mimed performance by a perfect little girl singer were brushed aside.

Chinese rights groups bitterly complained that the government broke its promises to the IOC to allow peaceful demonstrations and freedom of access to the internet. A few pro-Tibetan protests were swiftly suppressed.

The security forces evicted thousands of migrants from Beijing and arrested dissidents by the hundreds. Many events played out to half-empty stadiums because officials feared unrest.

Engineers cut off water to farmers south of Beijing to make sure the capital’s fountains never ran dry and sealed off the city with roadblocks to stop them protesting as thousands became destitute. Some committed suicide.

Facing questions in Beijing last year over China's record on human rights and suppression of freedoms during the Olympics, Rogge conceded that perhaps the committee had been naive in accepting the promises made by Chinese leaders - like the sports minister.

“After all,” he said, “we are idealists".

A spokesman for Rogge said he had been elected by a large majority. “Any insinuation that deals would have been made is absolutely false,” he said.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president