No leader of a big Western power will attend the Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, as tensions mount over Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will enjoy the limelight as the most important guest and Xi Jinping’s “best friend”
a shared future” is China’s wishful motto for the Winter Olympics, which will formally begin with fireworks and dancing at a ceremony in Beijing on February 4th. Officials say the slogan means humanity should work in harmony to conquer hardships such as the pandemic and its economic fallout. China’s state-run news agency says the games will “break down barriers and prejudices, and illuminate the way forward”. Sadly, they will not.
No leader of a big Western power will attend the games. The pandemic has provided some with an excuse for staying away. But the main reason is the scale of the repression that Xi Jinping has unleashed since he took power in 2012. In Xinjiang Mr Xi has sent about 1m people, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, to camps to “cure” them of “extremism”—a euphemism for stamping out their culture and Muslim faith. In Hong Kong he has crushed a liberal society, turning dissent into a crime.
In December America said that it would not “contribute to the fanfare of the games” by sending official representatives. Rightly, a few other Western countries have followed suit. But Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, does not share their scruples. As tensions mount over Ukraine, he will enjoy the limelight as the most important guest and Mr Xi’s “best friend”.
How the world has changed since China last hosted an Olympic event—the Beijing summer games of 2008. The West worried about China then, too. The country had been waging a fierce campaign to crush unrest in Tibet following widespread protests there. Human-rights groups were calling for boycotts. But many Western officials still believed that engaging with China might nudge it towards acceptance of the Western-led global order, or at least help tame the rise of anti-Western nationalism.
State media suggest that the opening ceremony is unlikely to be such a full-throated celebration of China’s greatness as was seen at the launch of the games in 2008, when thousands of costumed troops took part in grandiose performances. This time Mr Xi has stressed the need to keep things “simple”. But for athletes and others involved in the games, they will not be.
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