There is a difference between the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. The fading lights and performances during the opening of the current session last Friday evening, the divergent attendance of the few guests, and restrictions on the movement of delegations, players and journalists revealed the vast gulf between the two games. 14 years ago, We saw Beijing like a bride, shining in every corner of it, its people coming to life, despite the exorbitant financial burdens that cost them 100 billion dollars, to renovate the capital, build an Olympic village and stadiums, and organize the best shows for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics.
The 2008 Olympics rediscovered China, and showed its people's passion for openness to the world, and their aspiration for more freedoms.
Beijing was more polluted with coal fumes from factories and old houses. It was difficult to breathe in its atmosphere in the summer months, and suffocated its residents in the winter.
Today, pollution has decreased by 40% throughout China, and by about 50% in Beijing itself. The country's national income increased 3 times from what it was in 2008, and per capita income multiplied several times with it, and the life span was about two years, and means of pleasure and entertainment were available, yet the Olympics revealed the other side of the ancient city, and a system that is heading towards more tyranny.
The resident of Beijing now lives under siege around the clock inside healthy cordons, forbidden to travel, until the Olympics end in two weeks on the holy days of the Moon Festival, forbidden to speak, and always prohibited from any discussions on the Internet that violate the order and the limits of decency issued by him The ruling Communist Party last month, as a code of conduct imposed on everyone. Adding insult to injury, instructions were issued to prevent the Chinese public from entering stadiums to cheer on, and to prevent the 2,861 athletes from leaving the “bubble” in which the authorities placed representatives of countries and 91 teams competing in 15 disciplines and 7 different winter sports.
14 years ago, the organizing committee led by Xi Jinping launched a huge fireworks show, testifying to the extravagance that the government provided for the Olympics to win the world's admiration.
Xi Jinping, after becoming president of the country, sets out on the scene to achieve another goal in himself, which is to show delegates that he has an iron fist, and runs a repressive regime par excellence, capable of challenging anyone who disobeys him at home or confronts him abroad. . Xi has put in place strict controls to implement strict lockdowns in some major cities and districts, in order to comprehensively eradicate the COVID-19 epidemic. Xi wants his message to reach the delegations present, media cameras, and foreigners who are prohibited from moving without orders from the security services, that he was able to completely eradicate the virus from China, at a time when the most powerful Western democratic countries failed. For him, abandoning this goal is an admission that his political system is no better than the West's. (Xi) manages the epidemic file for a political project and not with a health goal, in contradiction to all medical norms, and pushes people to complain, after creating for them a state of terror and difficulty coexisting with strangers in Beijing or other cities that have stopped receiving tens of millions of people eager to visit China. For business or tourism reasons.
Xi ordered that airline officials, flight attendants, passport and hotel staff wear protective clothing and equipment for hazardous materials, masks and goggles, making all those who come into contact with delegations, players and foreigners as living in space shuttle capsules. The attendees - who received vaccinations and went through a prolonged quarantine period before entering the stadiums and the Olympic Village - are subjected to daily checks, and those who test positive are placed in a prolonged and grim medical quarantine.
At a time when the Olympic Games have lost their attractiveness due to the high costs of hosting them in many countries, the corruption that afflicts those in charge of them, and the unpopularity of the Winter Games in them, (Xi) built huge industrial stadiums for skiing on the Beijing Mountains, which appear as a black mass due to the lack of natural ice formation. It has, in addition to the four billion dollars allocated for the Olympics, several billions more that are not currently accounted for. Although the Communist Party established dozens of schools in order to teach students skiing sports, with the aim of pushing the skilled among them into races that China had not known before, and winning a large number of gold medals that would be the pride of the regime, the fate of these facilities that witness games unknown to them is complete closure or transformation It is a shrine visited by the youth of the Communist Party, who come to them from schools and regions, to learn about the party's achievements in major cities, and in a way that prompts them to believe in its virtues and renew allegiance to their leaders.
We saw (Xi) visit these stadiums himself several times during the preparation period for the event, and personally lead campaigns to push the Party, leaders of foreign countries and governments, and the local and international media to pay attention to them. In his capacity as head of state, he receives delegations and winners, and responds to the political boycott campaigns imposed by and with the United States 12 European countries, India, Japan and Australia, and globally market the Olympics message that he placed at the entrances to stadiums and the surrounding fence, under the title “a common future together” in order to impose his position as a unique leader, and support the capabilities of his growing ruling regime militarily and economically, which he wants to brag about in the eyes of others.
Xi knows that the Olympics have added headaches to a leadership that has had enough of serious economic and health crises, and he knows that the Olympics, in its current circumstances, are not wanted by many at home, while it is pushing him to war abroad. This Olympics is supposed to be his last act, as his second term ends next fall, but his management of the event prompted him to nod to his political group to amend the constitution, in order to remain president for a third term, perhaps forever.
Xi hopes that the Olympics will reformulate his alliances, after he succeeded in supporting authoritarian regimes similar to him in Moscow, Myanmar, Africa and several Arab countries, to stand in the way of the democratic transformation of the peoples and the West as a whole. Xi and his consort, Putin, act in a kindred spirit. He became “sitting at the head of authoritarian regimes, as he wants China to make the world safer for tyranny,” according to what he sees as the Chinese artist (Ai Wei Wei), who participated in building the Bird's Nest stadium, and fled to Switzerland, after losing his hopes for the 2008 Olympics in the openness of the regime. on human rights and freedom of expression. Xi crushed the will of liberal corporations committed to fighting forced labor, by applying international sanctions imposed on some Communist Party leaders accused of committing crimes of “genocide” of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang (East Turkistan). Xi calls on the West not to push China and the world into a “new cold war,” while applying moral standards that give the international community no choice but to walk away from these wars. After 33 years of crushing demonstrations calling for freedom of expression in Tiananmen Square in the center of the capital, Xi rejects his government's commitment to any humane standards of respect for human rights, and teaches many repressive regimes ways to confront the protest messages launched by international or local organizations concerned with protecting these rights, with the same logic that he claims. that “the role of the state stops at providing food and security for all,” and otherwise it is a luxury that people do not need!
His Communist Party makes no difference between calves and brains, so they do not pay attention to any criticism. Rather, they try to lead everyone with them into the same boat, sometimes by material temptation, and at other times by intimidating them of the consequences of freedom of speech and expression, so no one cares about the demonstrations that call for stopping “Bloody gains in Tibet,” nor the support of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and support for democracy in Hong Kong, nor the cries of the tortured from across Chinese cities.