When Beijing held the Summer Olympics in 2008, the International Olympic Committee predicted the Games could improve human rights, and Chinese officials hinted the same. There are no soaring promises this time with the Winter Olympics opening next week.
“There’s nothing to ‘prove’ at this point; 2008 was a ‘coming out’ party and all this one does is confirm what we’ve known for the last decade,” Amanda Shuman, a China researcher at the University of Freiburg, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
IOC President Thomas Bach called Beijing a “safe choice.” China spent more than $40 billion organizing the 2008 Olympics. The authoritarian state doesn’t need voter approval to proceed. Ai was jailed in 2011 in China on unspecified charges and how lives in exile in Portugal. The Bird’s Nest will again host the opening ceremony on Feb. 4.
Changes that affect 2022 began a month after the 2008 Olympics ended when the global financial crisis hit world economies. China fared better than most, which — coupled with the Olympics — increased its confidence. This also coincides with the rise of Xi Jinping, who headed the 2008 Olympics and was named General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012.