Chinese curlers hold a test event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. (April 1, 2021)
Despite an international boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, preparations for the games are ramping up. The Winter Olympics Organizing Committee announced Thursday (April 1) that it will hold test events for several venues and sports from today until the 10th.
Xinhua, the official media of the Communist Party of China, said the testing activities will be held in seven events at five major stadiums in Beijing: ice hockey, Paralympic hockey, short track speed skating, figure skating, speed skating, curling and wheelchair curling, which will take place in real life.
The Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee said at a press conference on Wednesday that the events will be conducted in accordance with the requirements of “simplicity, safety and excitement” and that the competition organization, venue operation and service support will be tested in real life.
An important aspect of testing is the prevention and control of epidemics. Although China has basically controlled the epidemic in the first half of last year, new infections have broken out from time to time in many parts of the country, and imported cases and local infections have not been completely eliminated. So far this year, many countries around the world are fast-tracking vaccination against the new coronavirus, but China is making slow progress in this regard, with only about 7% of the population vaccinated so far.
It is generally believed that the reason for the slow pace of vaccination is a lack of trust in domestically produced vaccines. Although China was the first country in the world to begin vaccine development, most of the multiple vaccines introduced in China to date have not completed phase III trials. Hosting such a large international sporting event under such circumstances cannot but make people feel uneasy.
The Beijing organizing committee has asked each venue to develop a plan for closed-loop management and health testing of participants on a case-by-case basis, in addition to additional specialized tests for registration, awards, sports presentations, media operations and broadcast services, and transportation. There are reports that plastic barriers have been added to the media interview area to avoid direct contact between the media and athletes.
The most vexing possibility for Beijing is the continuing ferment of human rights issues in Communist Xinjiang and Hong Kong, which have provoked very widespread international condemnation and prompted an extremely rare anti-China coalition in the West and many other countries. Over the past few months, a growing number of countries and civil society organizations have called for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics and for a change in the country of competition.
The persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang has spawned a massive wave of nationalist boycotts of foreign goods in China just as Beijing is launching its testing campaign for the event. The widespread boycott of numerous international brands in China for taking a stand against the use of Xinjiang cotton, which is suspected of forced labor, has pushed the conflict between China and the international community to a new level.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a historian at the University of California, notes that the nationalist strategy of pressuring “cheating companies” has been tried and true before. Beijing is well versed in forcing companies that have “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” to make public apologies. But in the case of the Xinjiang cotton and Hong Kong issues, this tactic has so far been unsuccessful. Western companies that have been harshly attacked by the Chinese Communist Party have not apologized to the Communist Party.
On Tuesday, the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) passed a bylaw amending the Hong Kong Basic Law regarding the methods for selecting Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and Legislative Council, provoking strong international condemnation of Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong’s affairs and denial of the democrats’ right to participate in politics. The bylaws amend all aspects of the election, including the vetting of legislators’ qualifications, the determination of the number of electors, and the composition of the election committee, to ensure that “patriots” have complete control over Hong Kong’s legislature. Observers say this is another major change to the principle of “a high degree of autonomy” and “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong” made by Beijing and the Hong Kong government.
The Chinese Communist Party began its efforts to reshape Hong Kong’s political system last June when it pushed through a national security law in the city. Before Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the Chinese Communist Party and Britain signed a joint declaration. In this statement, the CCP promised that Hong Kong’s current capitalist system would remain unchanged for 50 years. These changes made by the CCP to the Hong Kong system were widely seen as a betrayal of the promise of one country, two systems.
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