In a measure of the desperation with which Beijing wants the 2008 Olympic Games, city officials announced yesterday that they are considering beach volleyball in Tiananmen Square. If Chairman Mao were alive today he would undoubtedly be turning in his mausoleum, which dominates one half of the vast square. Beach volleyball is the Baywatch of the Olympic Games, in which men and women players are required to wear swim suits and bikinis of a designated scantiness.

During the Sydney Olympics, the volleyball games were staged at a stadium on Bondi Beach, and attracted scores of enthusiastic, beer-drinking fans, many of whom frankly admitted they were there to admire the beautiful bodies. Some Bondi residents objected to the desecration of their precious sands, and one wonders how Chinese traditionalists will react to beach volleyball in the symbolic heart of China, at the very Gates of the Forbidden City.

It is hallowed ground in more ways than one. Tiananmen Square is remembered everywhere for the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Beijing has been short-listed along with Paris, Osaka, Toronto and Istanbul for the 2008 Olympic Games. The winner will be selected by the International Olympic Committee in Moscow next July.

The idea of using Tiananmen Square came in response to a plan by Paris to locate the beach volleyball venue near the Eiffel Tower to attract maximum television coverage, Chinese media said.

"It will be good for the sport if the competitions are held in the square," said Gao Shenyang, a Chinese Volleyball Association official. "For our part we hope it can be accomplished and we are working for it." The China Daily said: "Swimsuits could become the hottest item on Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing", while acknowledging that the huge plaza was among the nation's "most august places." The embalmed body of Chairman Mao Zedong, the father of the communist revolution who led an indulgent private life but presided over a puritan society, is a major draw in the square for Chinese tourists.

Beijing missed out by two votes on the 2000 Games and is throwing everything into its bid for 2008. Two weeks ago officials ordered the vast capital's iron and steel works to clean up the noxious smoke it belches over the city by cutting its output and shutting down several blast furnaces within the next four months.

An International Olympic Committee delegation is due to inspect Beijing in February ahead of the vote in July. In winter Beijing is often enveloped in dust from the Gobi desert combined with pollution and smoke from domestic coal with high sulphur content.

During an Olympic inspection for the 2000 Games, Beijing ordered all its factories to shut down temporarily so that the atmosphere would be clean.