I’m sure Chinese authorities are jittery about this heart-wrenching crackdown in Burma. I was in Rangoon the last time the junta moved against civilian demonstrators in such a shocking way. That was Aug. 8, 1988; as many as 3,000 Burmese died. Later, in June 1989, I thought of the gruesome scenes I witnessed in a Rangoon morgue when I saw bodies of dead Chinese protestors killed near Tiananmen Square. That’s another analogy China’s leaders would prefer to forget.

Now Beijing’s close links with—and arms sales to—the junta are getting a lot more scrutiny than they’ve had for years. Imagery of Burmese soldiers using Chinese-made AK-47’s to shoot at civilians is not the sort of thing Beijing wants on television screens and YouTube as China prepares to host the 2008 Summer Games.

There’s a less obvious, darker reason why China’s mandarins are nervous, too. Burma’s generals chose to crack down on the eighth day of the eighth month of 1988 partly because of numerology. Asians generally like the number 8, especially Chinese for whom 8 augurs good luck.

For that reason, the Beijing Games are destined to kick off at 8:08 PM on August 8, 2008—which turns out to be the 20th anniversary of Burma’s earlier bloodletting. For Chinese organizers who hope to have every single heavenly body in auspicious alignment for the Olympics—including the weather, which is being manipulated by cloud-seeding—the curse of the figure 8 is an unsettling portent indeed.