That's a good question, and it was posed in an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by Geoffrey Fowler. As the article notes, the answer is "yes", depending on who you ask:

Was China's Olympic-torch relay around the world a miserable failure or a surprising success?

Yes.

To observers in the U.S. and Europe, Beijing's international spectacle was a public-relations disaster as protesters in both those regions tried to snatch or snuff the torch. Outside China, the relay seemed to symbolize the divisiveness of issues such as China's treatment of its Tibetan population. At home, it represented a profound sense of national unity.

That "profound sense of national unity" is a big payoff for the government. The problem is that it came at some cost in terms of external perceptions of China. The government no doubt has its priorities, but whether that cost will have been worth it is a question still unsettled. Arguably the same result could have been achieved less painfully.

Also, I note Davesgonechina has achieved international fame, with his "schizolympics" moniker cited in the article.

H/T: David Wolf.

Discussing how to PR the "Genocide Olympics"

Also worth a look is an article from New York Times Magazine that gets behind the scenes of Dream for Darfur's campaign against the Olympic sponsors. The article is several weeks old, but it provides an interesting look at how aspects of the campaign were engineered:

Late last month [Dream for Darfur Executive Director Jill Savitt] arranged a meeting with M+R Strategic Services, a national consultancy specializing in high-tech campaigning that happens to have its New York offices in the same building as Dream for Darfur. The goal was to gather advice on how to better focus the campaign and to come up with a plan to galvanize a grass-roots insurgency. She asked the consultants what actions to take consistent with her resources and size. Michael Ward, who consulted for Savitt when she was at Human Rights First, suggested making use of existing databases of activists, sending out mass e-mail messages frequently and leveraging free-marketing venues like social-networking Web sites. “Facebook should be the place,” he advised.

“O.K.,” Savitt said, looking pointedly at her staff, Allison Johnson and James Dunham, both in their mid-20s.

Savitt next asked for advice to give Ben Cohen for his jihad against the Olympic mascots. “Tell him to keep his message short,” Ward said. “The message here isn’t hard: Genocide bad; China helping.”

Looking over a list of Olympic sponsors, Ward advised Savitt to streamline her targets: “Choose two or even one company and hammer it. Everyone had sweatshops but it took that woman” — referring to Kathy Lee Gifford — “to make it real. McDonald’s is a phenomenal target; they are so retail. Johnson & Johnson is less of a brand and therefore less useful. Same goes with General Electric.”

“O.K.,” Savitt said. “But then we have to give up on my crazy bumper-sticker idea. She jumped to a white board and wrote “(GE)nocide.” She looked at Ward and deadpanned, “The only problem is G.E. isn’t actually responsible for any genocide”

“That’s an issue,” Ward said with a smile.

It sure is. Arguably the Chinese government isn't responsible for any genocide either. But that depends on how you look at things.