[Epoch Times, January 31, 2022](Epoch Times reporter Zhang Ting comprehensive report) The Associated Press said that when Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee predicted that the Olympics would improve human rights in China. And this time, for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, there is almost no such remarks. The Olympics have reminded the outside world of the CCP’s disregard for civil liberties, which has triggered diplomatic boycotts in the United States and other countries.
The 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics are both held in Beijing, but they are very different.
Compared with the 2008 Olympics, the 2022 Olympics will be held against the backdrop that China under the CCP has become more authoritarian and more contradictory to the West.
Space for speech further disappears in 2022
The 2022 Beijing Olympics will be held in a “closed loop” where 11,000 visitors must stay in three competition areas 111 miles apart, completely isolated from the Chinese population.
The Associated Press said the COVID-19 pandemic has given Beijing authorities more control over the Olympics, especially using the “Olympic bubble” to completely separate international journalists from the Chinese public.
Beijing’s rule is that international competitors and journalists will enter the “Olympic Bubble” as soon as they arrive in China, and they can only travel between designated hotels and official venues via Beijing Olympic Committee-controlled car, bus and rail lines They moved until they left China at the end of the event, and they were unable to contact the outside world throughout the whole process, as if they had been “vacuum isolation”.
Although the Olympic Committee said this was to prevent the spread of the virus, many journalists believed it was an attempt by the CCP to suppress independent reporting in order to preserve the CCP’s “image”.
During the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, Western journalists reported on the plight of Beijing residents, when the CCP razed their neighborhoods to the ground in order to build Olympic venues. But Matt Rennie, the Washington Post’s associate sports editor, who coordinated Olympic coverage this time around, acknowledged that “this type of coverage can be difficult when we’re limited to official hotels and venues.”
USA TODAY sports columnist Christine Brennan said: “They (the CCP) want to control us no matter what, and this (the epidemic) just gives them an excuse that the CCP will show the true face of the CCP. “
The BBC’s Beijing correspondent Stephen McDonell said in an article on January 26 that compared with 2008, the CCP’s acceptance of non-ideological content has been greatly reduced, and some would even say it is disappearing.
In recent weeks, some dissidents have come under pressure not to protest while the world‘s eyes are on China, Medivh said. This also happened in 2008. The difference now is that there are not so many intellectuals or human rights lawyers who need to be silent anymore, they have long been rounded up. In fact, a group of intellectuals seen as troublemakers was not so long ago restricted to group sharing on WeChat, China’s most important social media.
China’s human rights record continues to deteriorate in 13½ years
The 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics are about 13 and a half years apart. Reuters said that, as in 2008, the Olympic Games once again drew attention to human rights in China. Critics say China’s human rights record has worsened since then.
Human rights groups have documented the CCP’s forced labor, mass detention and torture, and the United States has accused the CCP’s brutal suppression of Uyghurs as genocide; after tennis star Peng Shuai accused former CCP Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault, Peng Shuai almost disappeared from the public eye The disappearance of China has led to intense international criticism of the CCP; in addition, the CCP has been accused of cracking down on opposition figures in Hong Kong, suppressing domestic dissidents, reining in private companies deemed a challenge to state power, and taking aggressive action against foreign critics.
“The 2008 Olympics are a powerful source of soft power for China’s desire to gain global influence,” Reuters quoted Rana Mitter, a professor of Chinese history and political science at Oxford University, as saying.
“China’s reputation in the Western world has declined dramatically over the past year,” Mitt said. “The Chinese Communist Party hopes that the 2022 Winter Olympics will reverse this situation.”
The Associated Press believes that since the last time it hosted the Olympics, the CCP has become more domineering, even directly threatening Winter Olympic athletes with punishment if words and deeds violate the CCP’s rules.
Diplomatic boycott of 2022 Winter Olympics
“Financial Times” said that in 2008, the United States and its allies still believed that incorporating China into the global trading system and promoting economic ties would empower China’s middle class and gain political freedom. In 2022, the CCP has shifted to a more authoritarian rule at home and more aggressive abroad. A secret Communist Party document circulated in 2012 was highly critical of supposedly malicious ideas spreading in China, such as constitutional democracy, civil society and universal values. Xi Jinping has taken strong action to stop the spread of these ideas.
According to the report, many Western countries thought that the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics affirmed their optimistic vision of China’s increasing integration into the international community, that over time, China’s system will be closer to their (West’s) own system. But that hope proved wrong. A dozen years from now, the Beijing Winter Olympics will be held in a very different China and a different global context than they (the West) expect.
As a result, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other countries have launched diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Winter Olympics, citing concerns about the CCP’s deteriorating human rights record, and not sending government representatives to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. There is no situation.
The report said that today’s Beijing leadership would not care about such a change, as domestic media would educate the public about Beijing’s overcoming the epidemic and Western attempts to intervene to successfully host the Olympics.
Some foreign delegations, concerned about information security during the Beijing Winter Olympics, warned members to bring disposable mobile phones. Athletes and rights groups have also warned of the risks of speaking on politically sensitive topics in China.
The Financial Times believes that Beijing’s “Olympic bubble” can be at least a partial metaphor for China today: China has moved far away from engagement with the West, especially the idea of integrating into the Western-led international order.
Responsible editor: Lin Yan#