Organisers have postponed a conference of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa after the government denied a visa to Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who won the prize in 1989 - five years after South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu won his and four years before Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk won theirs for their roles in ending the racist apartheid regime.

Although local media said the visa ban followed pressure from China, an increasingly important investor and trade partner, the government said it had not been influenced by Beijing and that the Dalai Lama's presence was just not in South Africa's best interest at the moment.

The conference, ahead of the 2010 World Cup, had been due to discuss how to use soccer to fight xenophobia and racism.

"We stand by our decision. Nothing is going to change. The Dalai Lama will not be invited to South Africa. We will not give him a visa between now and the World Cup," said government spokesman Thabo Masebe.

Whatever the reasoning, it angered the Nobel laureates in a country which has prided itself as a model of democracy and human rights since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, one of the conference organisers said the rejection was tainting South Africa’s democratic credentials.

"The government needs to review its decision and come to the party," said Mandela, set to become a parliamentarian with the ruling African National Congress after the election in April.

Allowing a visit by the Dalai Lama could certainly have made relations with Beijing more difficult. Ties between France and China were badly strained after French President Nicolas Sarkozy met him in December, when France held the European Union presidency.

But banning the Dalai Lama has also created a storm that South Africa was unlikely to have wanted either.

Was the ban the right thing to do?

The million dollar question on the minds of many: Will China change after the Olympics?

I’ve worked intermittently in Beijing for 11 years and in Taipei for 15, but analysing the world’s most populous nation, and an opaque one for that matter, is like a blind man feeling an elephant.

In many ways, I expect it to be business as usual for the Communist Party post-Olympics, resisting political change and tightening the security noose in restive Tibet and Xinjiang. But my money is also on ordinary Chinese clamouring for greater freedoms and forcing their government to be more transparent and accountable.

Chinese have never had it this good since the 1949 revolution, enjoying unprecedented personal freedoms after three decades of liberalisation transformed the country from an economic backwater into the world’s fourth-biggest economy.

They have traded their Mao suits for business suits. They are no longer rationed food and have more than enough to eat. They can choose where to live, travel, study and work and don’t need Party approval to tie the knot.

There is no turning back the clock. As China seeks its rightful place in the world, it is likely to be more open and integrated with the rest of the world.

The word “Westernisation” is still taboo among Chinese leaders, but many of my Chinese friends fancy jeans, McDonald’s hamburger, Kentucky fried chicken, Coca-cola, Hollywood movies and rock and roll. Many Chinese have yet to forgive and forget Japan’s wartime atrocities which Japanese ultra-nationalists claim were fabricated, but Beijing’s roads are filled with Japanese cars and Chinese youth are obsessed with Sony Playstations and Nintendo Game Boys.

With or without the Games, China will change at its own pace.

There is no need to gaze into the crystal ball to find out what China’s future will be. The weather in recent days may be a barometer: cloudy one day, thunderstorms another and finally bright sunny skies.

PHOTO: This combination picture shows the Olympic flame before (L) and after it was extinguished during the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium August 24, 2008. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

The Beijing bureau today continued its look at China’s ‘08 generation, 19 years after the crushing of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and 64 days before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Read Lucy Hornby’s piece about the challenges facing China’s college graduates here

 Pictures of aTianjin job fair by Vincent Du.