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Who will challenge the Monkey King?

China's provinces are jockeying to provide the face of the 2008 Olympics. One will triumph Friday.

LIANYUNGANG, China - As the propaganda head of Lianyungang, Wu Jiaqing's chief mission is to carry the Chinese Communist Party's message to the people in the economically struggling port city.

But lately, he has overseen a different campaign. He has run an aggressive lobbying effort to get Beijing to select a local icon - a mischievous magical monkey from Chinese folklore - as the mascot for the 2008 Olympic Games. Wu and his colleagues have traipsed to the capital a dozen times to persuade Olympic officials and heads of important government entities to "make the beautiful Monkey King as universal as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck."

While the panda, China's best-known animal, might seem the odds-on favorite to be the pick for 2008 when the selection is announced Friday, sharp competition has erupted among a handful of relatively poor areas vying to have their local symbols chosen. At stake is a hoped-for boost in name recognition, tourism and investment.

The Beijing Olympic organizing committee has been tight lipped about the mascot selection, revealing few details about the process before a winner is announced.

In 2004, the Year of the Monkey, Lianyungang strung up monkey-shaped lanterns in a section of Shanghai for the Lunar New Year. The city's mayor was in Beijing so often, Olympic officials joked that he lived there.

"Chinese cities are in fierce competition" for investment, Wu said unapologetically. "We're like cats trying to catch rats crossing the street. Whoever doesn't catch one is out luck."

Although sales of licensed products, including stuffed toy mascots, have exceeded $300-million at recent Olympic Games and Beijing expects a bigger windfall, local governments will see almost none of this money. Instead, they expect the attention will bring more investment and tourists.

A chronically poor part of the country halfway between Beijing and Shanghai, Lianyungang has struggled despite central government help.

But the city's bet on the Monkey King, whose legendary mountain home lies outside the Lianyungang, has begun to pay off. Wu and other officials said tourism has picked up, with the number of tourists more than doubling over the past three years to 6.3-million last year.

[Last modified November 5, 2005, 01:23:12]