As China cracks down on demonstrators, limits Internet access and curbs journalists' freedoms, the country's officials are welcoming advertising from companies paying unprecedented amounts to be part of the Beijing Olympic Games, beginning today.

Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa, General Electric, Panasonic, Lenovo, Atos Origin, Samsung, Manulife and Omega have spent about US$80 million each to be one of the 12 exclusive global sponsors, while an estimated $6 billion will be spent on advertising related to the Games, Yahoo! Sports reported.

To date, the Beijing Games are the most expensive, and by a wide margin, at $43 billion, compared to the 2004 Athens Games, which cost $15 billion, Reuters reported in an article posted by Guardian Sport.

Ads customised for the Chinese market will not be seen in Europe or the United States.

“These are brazenly nationalistic campaigns,” John Quelch, a marketing professor at Harvard University, told Yahoo! Sports, “and it's just a reflection of the fact that the Beijing Olympics are a very big deal for China and global brands wanting to be associated with that local sentiment.”

China is the world's biggest jailer of journalists, and despite criticism from governments and international organisations, it has not honoured the promises for reforms it made when bidding for the 2008 Games. One promise was to provide journalists covering the Olympics with unrestricted Internet access, stating the media would have “complete freedom to report when they came to China.” That has not been done, and the government also continues harassing foreign journalists and jailing Chinese journalists, according to the World Association of Newspapers and Reporters Without Borders.

Demonstrators are also being stopped, with four Americans being arrested this week for unfurling a “Free Tibet” banner near the Olympic stadium, Yahoo! Sports reported.

Although viewers will not see what is happening outside the Games themselves, they will see advertisements, both in China and around the world, as companies “hope to create a bond that's an emotional bond between their products and brand and the Chinese people” by “connecting themselves to this very patriotic or nationalistic activity,” Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing consultant who also has a Beijing office, told Yahoo! Sports.

The Olympics are the perfect way for advertisers to get a foot in the door in China, according to David Rebstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. With a population of 1.3 billion, if just 10 or 20 percent buy a product, they already have a consumer base bigger than the entire population of the United States, he told Yahoo! Sports.

Advertisers are paying big to be a part of the games because they know their investments will pay off, Rebstein said. For them, China's enormous market is the biggest prize.