Video: fireworks spectacular | Commentary: as it happened

The world saw China as it sees itself and as it wants to be seen by the world. Swaying nymphs from Buddhist mythology shared the Bird’s Nest stadium with inscriptions of Confucius and children armed with huge, oversized calligraphy brushes.

The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was about China’s historic achievements and its dreams of future success. The show focused on moments that China sees as defining its journey through history, culminating in its current status on the brink of becoming a world superpower.

Zhang Yimou, the designer of the breathtaking show and an Oscar-nominated film director, selected themes that would be easily understood by an international audience, relished by his hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers and appreciated by the Communist leaders for dodging any sensitive moments in China’s path to becoming an Olympic host.

He began with Confucius, vilified by Mao Zedong, but now cultivated by the Politburo as a role model for the people. With a roll of drums – used over thousands of years to mark the time – 2,008 costumed men from the People’s Liberation Army pounded out a hypnotic beat with glowing red drumsticks to get the ceremony under way.

Next into the stadium were 3,000 men in flowing robes of the Warring States period, representing the students of Confucius. They repeatedly chanted a saying of the ancient sage that every Chinese schoolchild learns.

“Friends have come from afar, how happy we are.” The film director left his audience in no doubt of his intention to intertwine the show of Chinese cultural achievements with a message that China wanted to be friends with the world.

First, a display of China’s great inventions. In the land that invented gunpowder, 29 colossal “footprints of fire” lit the night sky and marched through the city along the “dragon’s vein” that delineates its north-south axis – once the foundation of imperial power.

A huge scroll – a symbol of the unfurling of Chinese history – rolled open across the floor of the stadium. Dancers writhed across its centre, sweeping ink strokes over the surface that represented another of China’s great inventions – paper.

Among the most dramatic moments was the demonstration of printing, when hundreds of performers hidden in grey boxes etched with stylised Chinese characters rose and fell in unison. They surged and rippled to show the Great Wall and to spell out the character “he” – or harmony. It is not only one of the fundamental tenets of Confucian thought, but also a favourite theme of President Hu Jintao, who watched from the seat of honour.

Its message was intended to convey that the shock and awe of China’s Olympics – the most expensive in history at $43 billion (£22.5 billion) – do not portend the arrival of a country that could menace the world.

Last of the inventions was the compass, its arrival accompanied by dancers holding huge painted paddles that they held together to create illustrations of ancient ships.

The printing blocks metamorphorsed into peach blossoms – a flower synonymous in China with utopian gardens of peace and eternal life.

Then the tableau disintegrated and the scroll showed illustrations of camels on the Silk Road – an era in Chinese history when the country inched open its doors to trade with foreign countries.

This was a spectacle that emphasised the moments when China encouraged exchanges with the rest of the world.

A giant globe emerged from under the floor, and acrobats ran rings around the gyrating sphere. On its top, Britain’s Sarah Brightman sang with the Chinese idol Liu Huan.

The Chinese leadership had turned out in force. The Politburo Standing Committee sat stiff in the dark suits, white shirts and red shirts that have become the uniform since the Mao jacket was cast off. One or two tried a smile but most maintained the poker faces deemed correct for leaders of a land of 1.3 billion people. Lesser officials chose shirt sleeves and most had equipped themselves with fans to try to ease the stifling humid heat.

President Hu made attempts at conversation with his neighbour Jacques Rogge, chief of the International Olympic Committee. It was, of course, the point of the night to make friends.

As if to emphasise China’s hope that the world would not see its growing might as a threat, the deep-throated cries of another Confucius saying echoed out: “We are all brothers in this world.”

The thousands of umbrellas unfurled to show the smiling faces of children from different countries. More fireworks erupted in a display that mirrored those happy faces in showers of red, pink and purple sparks.

Glossed over in the snapshot of 5,000 years of history were the centuries when China was closed off from the world – and the decades of Communist rule in the second half of the 20th century. Girls dressed as ladies from the Tang dynasty (618-907) an age of great openness, paraded across the stage in their stiff, embroidered dresses. It was a time of emperors who were ready to engage with outsiders.

And this was a time when China wanted to be a friend to the world.