Beijing Opens Its Second Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics kicks off today in Beijing, and while many millions may be watching at home, the coronavirus pandemic and sparse diplomatic attendance list means few will see the spectacle in person.
Even though the opening ceremony takes place in the same Bird’s Nest stadium as 2008’s Summer Games, the political atmosphere, like the weather, has changed significantly. Back in 2008, the Games were meant as a signal to the world of China’s ambition, and, as then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s attendance showed, it came at a time when the United States still saw China’s rise as inevitably bringing it into the liberal international order.
Since then, China’s economy has flourished, almost tripling its GDP, with life expectancy almost neck and neck with the United States. Alongside its economic might, China’s rapid development of high-technology industries, regional infrastructure investment, and a military modernization push has shifted U.S. strategic thinking. In 2008, the United States was still guided by the war on terror, now “rivalry” with China is front and center of U.S. national security strategy, following on from President Donald Trump’s “Great Power competition.”
The popularity contest. That new reality ties somewhat into today’s audience of dignitaries, or lack of them. A U.S-led diplomatic boycott, in protest at the treatment of China’s Uyghur population—described by Amnesty International as a crime against humanity—has had relatively few public adherents. In a balancing act, major economic powers Germany and Japan are not sending diplomats, but have been coy as to why, others have the ongoing pandemic as an excuse.
Argentina, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are the sole G-20 representatives, while Poland and Luxembourg are the only EU members sending diplomatic delegations.
Of course, a diplomatic boycott can’t be blamed for all of the world leaders staying home. For now, the rich world is still the cold world, so much of the Global South won’t be represented at these Games. Indeed, less than half of those countries that competed in Tokyo in the summer have sent athletes to Beijing, and just five African countries are competing.
As my FP colleague James Palmer observed in Wednesday’s China Brief, the empty seats matches the empty shrug from locals in Beijing, frozen out of the Games over public health fears spurred by the omicron variant.
Those concerns will be minimal once today’s opening ceremony begins, and the message of the Beijing Games comes through. As China analyst Christopher Johnson told the Wall Street Journal, it’s a relatively simple one: “We’re here. Get used to it.”