The True Face of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games

Beijing has now become the first city in Olympic history to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games.  The 2008 Summer Games were held in the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and were not without controversy with calls to boycott the games due to the ongoing human rights violations in occupied Tibet.  Yet very little came from these appeals.  Sadly, Amnesty International reports that the human rights situation in the PRC has not improved since 2008; it has grown exponentially worse in Tibet along with the crackdown on the Muslim Uyghur population in occupied East Turkestan (the PRC province of Xinjiang), as well as in Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, and beyond.  Once again there has been an international call to boycott the 2022 Winter Games as the PRC has dismissed these reports of human rights violations, forced labor and genocide as nothing more than “vicious rumors.” 

I can’t help but draw comparisons between the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing and the 1936 Summer Games – the so called “Nazi Games” – in Berlin.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the Berlin Olympiad in 1931 during the post-World War I Weimar Republic.  Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime came to power in 1933 and considerable debate followed outside Germany over whether the competition should be allowed, cancelled, or relocated as several countries began to question whether participation in the Berlin games might be seen as support for the Nazi regime and its racial and anti-Semitic policies.  This would have been the first such boycott attempt in Olympic history.  Although some individual athletes chose to boycott the games, these international protests were ultimately unsuccessful and 49 national teams eventually came to Berlin . . . the largest number of participating nations to that point.  The newly established left-wing Popular Front government of Spain did boycott the Berlin games and attempted to sponsor an alternative Olympiad in Barcelona which promised to be the “greatest anti-fascist spectacle yet seen.”  Several countries, including the Soviet Union and dozens of US athletes who chose not to go the Berlin, planned to participate, but the games were aborted with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.  The Roosevelt administration chose not to enter into the debate about the Berlin Summer Games, siding with the long-standing US Olympic Committee policy of non-governmental influence.  Although William E. Dodd, the US ambassador to Berlin, opposed the US decision to participate in the games, he did attend the opening ceremonies hosted by Adolf Hitler as the Olympic torch was carried past rows of Hitler Youth waving swastika banners.  Thousands of anti-fascist athletes and fans attended the 1936 Summer Games which proved to be a propaganda coup for the Nazis.

There is a growing tradition of boycotts and threats of boycotts at Olympic Games for political reasons.  Last July, the European Parliament called on EU governments to decline sending governmental and diplomatic representation to the Winter Games in Beijing.  Over 200 NGOs and rights organizations also called for a boycott.  The United States, which led the effort, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, along with a number of other countries, agreed to this boycott while hesitating to sanction a general boycott of the Beijing Winter Games as was the case in 1980 when the USA and 41 other countries boycotted the Summer Games in Moscow to protest the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.  The Soviets and 19 other countries staged a quid pro quo by staying away from the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.

The Beijing Winter Olympics have become the most politicized in recent memory and they provide many benefits for China; there are really no downsides for the country.  In the past, the PRC has used the Olympic Games to convince the world community it deserves a prominent place in the international order.   As with everything the PRC does, it wants to occupy the center stage internationally.  In 2008, the PRC mobilized labor and capital to present its best face to the rest of the world and buttress its status as a global economic and technological power.  President Xi Jinping also wants to use the Winter Games as a “bread and circuses” diversion to cultivate national pride at home, and media coverage of the Games will be highly nationalistic and laudatory, aimed at impressing the Chinese people . . . the “Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Historically the PRC has never been strong in winter sports, yet it hopes the success of its athletes at the Games will also enhance the country’s reputation and fill its people with a sense of pride.  The day before the Games opened yesterday the International Olympic Committee declared the PRC is now a "winter sport country." 

Beijing’s vision for the 2022 Winter Games is not fundamentally different from 2008, but the stakes are certainly higher.  I can’t help but suspect that the PRC’s threats of political and economic retribution have lessen the impact of the diplomatic and governmental boycott.  Although most countries will not join this limited boycott, its existence clearly signals international disapproval of Beijing’s domestic policies among several democratic countries.

The PRC has grown into a major global power, and countries with important trade ties with the PRC are hesitant to participate in a boycott.  Beijing would view this as an insult and retaliate, claiming its national reputation and that of the governing Communist Party would be damaged.  Yet with the emergence of the Omicron variant within the PRC, Beijing has canceled ticket sales to the public.  While allowing athletes to travel to the PRC to compete in the Games, it has ruled that only its citizens will be allowed to attend the Games citing the COVID-19 pandemic.  The International Olympic Committee issued a clarification of the ruling:

         The restriction on spectators from outside mainland China had to be put

in place in order to ensure the safe holding of the Games this winter…

This will facilitate the growth of winter sports in China by giving those

spectators a first-hand Olympic and Paralympic experience of elite

winter sports, as well as bringing a favorable atmosphere to the venues.

Unfortunately, Olympic athletes are finding themselves in increasingly tenuous positions navigating the PRC’s limits on free speech and human rights tensions while pursuing their athletic aims.  There are also very real concerns that the IOC is not doing enough to push back against restrictions put in place by the PRC authorities that undermine the historic traditions of the Olympic Games.

With no spectators and a highly controlled environment for the athletes and foreign observers, there is little chance for significant protest demonstrations to break out.  Perhaps there will be individual acts of protest against human rights violations, but they will receive no public attention, and anyone involved will likely be expelled.  The PRC’s Olympic Organizing Committee has made it clear that “[a]ny behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese [sic] laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.”  Some athletes have threatened to boycott the usually festive opening and closing ceremonies as a personal protest yet the IOC has urged them to avoid controversy and to attend the ceremonies.  Others fear that such protests will be punished by the PRC hosts or by their own national Olympic organizations at home.   

The opening ceremonies took place yesterday as the global spotlight shifted to Beijing.  All evidence indicates they were just what the PRC authorities hoped they would be while putting their own spin on current geopolitical issues.  An unfurled PRC national flag was passed hand to hand by representatives of all 56 ethnic groups in the PRC before the flag was raised above the stadium while a member of the Uyghur minority was one of two athletes 

participating in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.  Despite the call for a diplomatic and governmental boycott, a few world leaders from autocratic states, including President Putin of Russia, joined President Xi to watch the opening ceremonies which were nevertheless dramatically scaled back from the 2008 Summer Games extravaganza attended by then US President George W. Bush.

The Beijing Winter Games are with us whether we like it or not, and it is important to remind the world what the PRC is doing despite its efforts to prove it is a respectable and responsible member of the community of nations.  It is not and the PRC gives no indication it intends to change its ways.  Please take a moment and use your voice and social media platforms to show solidarity with those living under PRC occupation and suffering from human rights violations, including genocide. . . the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the voiceless.  Do it for yourselves and for humanity.