The carefully crafted beauty that is China was on display for all the world to see Friday night.

Two thousand and eight drummers. The same number of tai chi artists. And dancers. And men bobbing up and down inside giant boxes, looking as programmed as a computer grid.

There is no better international stage to strut your stuff than the Olympics, and the 2008 Beijing Games began with an opening ceremony to end all opening ceremonies.

Or as NBC’s Bob Costas noted at the close of a drum concert that was both militaristic and magical: “It’s awe-inspiring. It’s also a little intimidating.”

It was both, of course. It was probably meant to be both. When you count 1.3 billion men, women and children as your citizenry — one-fifth the population of the entire world — you should be both.

And Friday night was clearly China at its calculated best. Inspired. Creative. Meticulous. Provocative. Understated. Overwhelming. Transcendent.

If this be a Chinese propaganda buffet, let me explode from a steady stuffing of it.

But then came Saturday and the news that the father-in-law of U.S. men’s volleyball coach Hugh McCutchen was stabbed to death near the Drum Tower, a historic landmark near Beijing.

McCutchen’s mother-in-law also was attacked and remains in serious condition. The attacker committed suicide by jumping off the tower before any explanation for his attack could be determined.

As we relearned in Atlanta 12 years ago, as the world first learned 36 years ago in Munich, even the Olympics provides little defense against madmen.

The Chinese may zealously guard the Games’ venues, athletes and fans within those venues, but a single nut job with a knife, gun or bomb can always find a way to spread his poison.

Still, in a country that values saving face above all else, this was no way to assure the world that the new China is a vastly different place than the old China of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Nineteen summers have come and gone since then, and a rogue madman — assuming this murder is indeed on the hands of a single tortured soul — should never be compared to a merciless military action.

China really does appear different. More westernized and less polarized. Clad in a gray suit, white shirt and red tie, Premier Wen Jiabao’s opening-ceremony attire was almost identical to President George W. Bush’s on Friday night. No Chairman Mao brown military garb for this guy.

But before anyone or everyone climbs on board the Chinese bandwagon, convinced they’re suddenly as peaceful as the dove formed by 2,008 dancers Friday night, let us remember this is the same country that covered our children’s toys in lead-based paint. The same country that saw many of its own killed in its recent horrible earthquake because it built too many of its buildings on the cheap — even its elementary schools. The same country whose human rights record is as limp as its noodles.

As John Edwards reminded us earlier this weekend, an image can be deceiving. Or as Ronald Reagan once noted: Trustbut verify.

Said Olympic historian David Wallechinsky in Friday’s USA Today: “The purpose of this is to create an image that will increase the legitimacy of the Communist Party to their own people.”

He also noted that the Nazi Party had a similar aim at the 1936 Games, just in case you aren’t yet a little intimidated.

This is not to denigrate the visual and auditory magnificence of Friday night. To borrow another line from Costas: “Is it too early to retire the trophy on opening ceremonies?”

If you weren’t inspired and enchanted by what took place inside the grand stadium the Chinese have affectionately dubbed the Bird’s Nest, you’re either soulless or British, since it is now London’s misfortune to follow the best opening ceremony ever when it hosts the 2012 Games.

And we can only hope that the next 15 days far more closely mirror these Games’ opening night than a seeming random act of unthinkable violence at Beijing’s Drum Tower less than a day later.

At its best, sport inspires everyone. All you need to understand its power to lift the human spirit of an entire nation is to return to our U.S. hockey team’s victory over Russia in 1980.

But for these Beijing Games to become more than one amazing night followed by one awful day, China needs to lift its human rights record as swiftly as it did its torch lighter on opening night.