China is determined to make the Winter Olympics go smoothly
It must cope with boycotts, covid and the unexpected
CHINESE OFFICIALS like to call Beijing the “double-Olympic city”. No other can boast having staged both the summer games and its winter equivalent, the 24th iteration of which will open in the Chinese capital on February 4th. The winter games will arouse less enthusiasm, in China and globally, than the summer ones in Beijing in 2008. But for Xi Jinping, China’s leader, they are of great symbolic importance. They are also fraught with risk. Overshadowed by diplomatic boycotts, a potential war in Europe involving China’s close friend, Russia, and by Omicron’s advance, the event will fray nerves.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Faster, higher, bossier”
From the January 29th 2022 edition
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