BEIJING - Beijing is surely one of the world's great cities: vital, energetic, inexhaustible. But the 500,000 foreigners who visit Beijing for the Olympics next month will see it at its worst. This summer, the life is being slowly sucked out of it.

China's capital city is being sanitized and sterilized to within an inch of its life. It's being cleaned and tidied and swept up to the point where it feels like an artificial replica of itself.

Beijing's soul was always its street life: its hawkers and vendors, its ethnic minorities from every corner of China, its street food, its giant flashing neon signs and semi-legal businesses, its recycling men in bicycle carts, its migrant workers and foreign backpackers, its late-night music clubs and cheap sidewalk restaurants.

All of that is gone now, or in danger of disappearing. The Olympic visitors are supposed to admire Beijing's majestic buildings and luxury malls without anything unpredictable or quirky to disturb the view. The city is turning into Singapore: tightly controlled and regulated by the official taste masters of the state.

There is almost a Potemkin Village feeling to the impressive facades on the wide avenues now. The hawkers and vendors are gone, swept from the streets, replaced by luxurious new shopping malls. Many of the foreign tourists and most of the backpackers are gone, unable to get visas or deterred by the heavy paperwork. University students are under pressure to leave Beijing for the summer. The biggest universities are closed to all visitors for two months. Thousands of migrant workers and ethnic minorities are being forced out of the city.

The neon rooftop signs are gone, and nobody is permitted to rent a billboard unless they are an official Olympic sponsor. Many of the sidewalk cafes have been forced indoors. A growing number of Beijing's music clubs have been banned from holding live-music shows because of licensing rules that were never enforced until now. Bars have been ordered to close by 2 a.m. every night. Streets have been prettified with artificial trees, which are apparently considered more beautiful than real trees.

Olympic spectators are required to fit into this aesthetic autocracy. The latest rules, reported this week by China's state news agency, orders the Olympic spectators to “dress normally” without any commercial logos and without “identical patterned clothes” if they are watching in a group. The report said the rules “must ensure an orderly, happy and harmonious environment.” It also disclosed that 800,000 Chinese volunteers have been taught China's official four-step cheer, “in unified sportswear, with easy-to-learn slogans.”

A few of Beijing's urban reforms were long overdue. A canal in my neighbourhood, which stank of stagnant water for years, has now been nicely cleaned up and actually looks enticing for boats. On Sanlitun Bar Street, the pimps who harassed male visitors have been finally forced out, after being ignored by police for years. The vendors of illegal pirated goods are largely shut down, although some have simply shifted to back rooms where they are less visible.

But most of the changes are designed to please the government, not the visitors. The entire spectacle, in fact, is intended to create an impressive image on television. If you're watching the Olympics on television, you are the intended target audience. If you happen to be visiting Beijing during the Olympics, you won't really understand what this city is all about.