Well, if China didn’t know it before, China certainly knows it now: you don’t get the Olympic Games on your own terms.

The Olympic torch relay was a showcase all right, but not for the glory of China. Rather it was a showcase for pro-Tibet protesters and even more so for the uncontrollable, turbulent and chaotic nature of a tolerant society.

Many pro-Tibet people have said that awarding the Games to China was a terrible mistake. But for others the Olympics have already provided a matchless opportunity to raise the issue of Tibet and China’s human rights record to a global audience, to all people whose media are not controlled by the state in fact.

The peaceful demonstrations that followed the torch around London, and the arrest of three dozen or so people for public order offences — not crimes against the state, please note — were able to make a loud and embarrassing point about Tibet. They also made a still more forceful point about diversity of opinion and its legitimate expression in the democratic world.

At the centre of it all was a flame — the sort of thing that you can create yourself with a match or a cigarette lighter. It is an extraordinary example of the potency of symbols and of the many and various meanings that a powerful symbol can possess.

The flame is the symbol of the Olympics. It stands for the greatest sporting event, the greatest celebration of humanity and the biggest party in history. It also carries a baggage of imposed meanings: peace, universal brotherhood and the eternal goodness of the human spirit.

The Olympic torch has been irresistible throughout its history to politicians, and latterly to giant commercial organisations. It has been used by one country after another to promote itself, not least by our own. Britain will meet its own demonstrators when London stages the Olympic Games in four years’ time, particularly if it still has a military presence in Iraq.

The torch means more than fun and games and peace and love. Right now, it also means the glory and ambition and power of China. Because of this, it was impossible to parade it around London without a guard of panting policemen. The guard itself becomes a potent symbol of the reservations many people feel about China — reservations not about its athletes but about its government.

Chinese officials will tell us that the Olympic Games are about sport, pure and simple. But sport is never pure and rarely simple. If the Chinese didn’t know that before, well, that’s another lesson learnt on a turbulent day.

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