HAIKOU, CHINA - Paramilitary police donned Hawaiian shirts, and pink buses shuttled in more cops in camouflage. Security was heavy, but officers were markedly relaxed as jubilant crowds, apparently free of protesters, helped kick off the Olympic torch's tour of China.

Up to a million people squeezed along the route. "Go China!" they screamed as the flame bobbed by.

Wednesday was apparently another trouble-free day before cheering crowds as the torch made a 10-hour tour through the southern city of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, in China's prosperous manufacturing center.

So far, the Olympic torch seems to be having a smooth relay in China, uninterrupted by the protests over Tibet and human rights that followed parts of its international tour.

Relieved corporate sponsors such as Samsung and Coca-Cola, whose logos were seldom seen along the torch relay outside China, now are splashing their names everywhere.

Hint of what's ahead

How China handles the torch and the crowds is a hint of how it will manage the Beijing Olympics. While most of the more than 100 stops across China should go smoothly, legs through Tibet and the largely Muslim province of Xinjiang -- areas with recent protests against Chinese rule or policies -- could test security and crowd control.

Police and paramilitary forces by the dozens jogged on either side of the torch. Others were posted every few feet along the route. The rest waited in reserve, along with a bomb-disposal truck and armored vans lined with tiny windows and gun portals.

The few thousand people invited to the opening and closing ceremonies for each day's run have had to pass through security checkpoints with metal detectors.

Even torch bearers were told to leave watches, cell phones, cameras and other items behind before their leg of the relay, said torchbearer Derrick Cope. The American businessman in Shanghai was among 10 people chosen in a Chinese television reality show called "You are the Torch Bearer."

Cheers for China

Crowds in Haikou were friendly to foreigners, showing little of the angry, anti-Western sentiments of recent weeks after protests in London, Paris and San Francisco that some Chinese saw as an attack against China and the Olympics.

"Welcome to China!" university students called out, some sporting face paint and tooting plastic horns as the convoy streamed by.

Others following the torch were celebrating the fact that many in China have left the hard life behind after 30 years of free-market economic reforms.

In a dusty field outside the closing ceremony in Haikou, 64-year-old retiree Ren Anqing stood out from the young crowd in his old-style undershirt, shorts and sandals. "When I was young, I raised cows," he said, smiling. "These kids? They have everything."