Russia spent upwards of $50 billion to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, then concocted the most elaborate doping scheme in history — all to cement its standing as a global sports superpower. The country’s invasion of Ukraine, coming on the heels of yet another drug scandal that consumed the Beijing Olympics earlier this month, could serve to undermine an athletic dynasty tarnished by cheating and deception, and often countered with only tepid pushback from international sports leaders. If a further reckoning comes, it would damage Russia’s ability to host events domestically and dominate them abroad. It would deliver a financial and a psychological blow. And it would compromise the image that President Vladimir Putin and leaders before him have tried to cultivate — one of a prosperous country fortified by strong athletes who beat their international opponents in the games people play. Read:Russian troops enter Ukraine's 2nd largest city of Kharkiv Edwin Moses, the American gold-medal hurdler who had a key role in sorting through the Russian scandals, recalled trying to explain Moscow’s point of view to anti-doping leaders. “One thing I was always trying to get across to them was, ‘You don’t understand how important sports are to them,’” Moses said. “And I’d tell them, ‘You don’t understand how far they’re willing to go to corrupt it.’” In addition to widespread condemnation from Western governments, Russia’s move into Ukraine was largely disparaged by major sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. A number of federations, including skiing, curling and Formula 1, pulled premier events out of Russia. European soccer’s governing body UEFA led the way when it relocated this spring’s Champions League final from St. Petersburg to Paris. The International Biathlon Union banned Russia from its events. The largest conglomerate of them all, the IOC, condemned the invasion. One economics professor estimated the financial loss of the Champions League final could be in the tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of what Russia might forfeit from all the relocated events. But, he said, money is a small part of what motivates Putin. “He’s in it for the prestige and power,” said Victor A. Matheson of College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.. “The real thing here is that this is a big blow to his ego. He loves being in charge of things.” Russia’s power in the world sports community is most sharply defined by its relationship with the IOC. Even though Putin’s country officially was banned from the Beijing Games, it fielded a team of more than 200 athletes competing as members of the “Russian Olympic Committee.” They combined to win 32 medals, the second-biggest haul at the Games. Every bit as notable was that Putin attended the opening ceremony with IOC leader Thomas Bach at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. It was a show of defiance: Putin was there, while the U.S. and some of its allies refused to send diplomats to protest China’s human rights record. It also underscored how Putin was in good enough standing with the IOC to be present despite the ban. “In Putin’s mind right now, Russia will be at the Olympics again” three years from now in Paris, said Paul Massaro, a senior policy adviser to Congress who works on issues involving sports and international corruption. “But I’m not sure he totally appreciates what a paradigm shift he’s created. I don’t want to be eating these words, but I actually think Russia could be banned this time.” The Russian government has portrayed the doping investigations as politically driven by the West. The IOC’s recent condemnation of Moscow over Ukraine focused on the breach of the “Olympic Truce,” a U.N.-sanctioned call for world peace that remains in play until March 20, seven days after the close of the Paralympic Games in Beijing. Despite the rhetoric, Bach would have to reverse years of precedent in his relatively soft treatment of Russia in the country’s long-running doping scandals. What steps he takes to back up the IOC’s most recent show of displeasure will shape Russia’s role in world sports for the next decade or longer. Potentially working against the country was the sordid doping case involving 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva that consumed the Beijing Games. She tested positive for using a banned heart medication, and the result wasn’t announced by anti-doping officials until after she’d won gold as part of the team competition, even though the sample was taken weeks earlier. That put Bach in the rare position of openly criticizing Russia, a move that, in turn, brought a rebuke from the Kremlin. The Olympic movement, and international sports in general, have tolerated far worse from Russia, and before that, the Soviet Union. Moses told of traveling to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s — long before anti-doping rules had been globally codified — to try to work out a drug-fighting agreement with Soviets. “Their reason for setting up a (anti-doping) lab was completely different from our reason,” Moses said. “We tried to put a lid on doping. They tried to make sure they didn’t get caught. It was the prestige of those athletes winning gold medals. They wanted it, and those athletes would become national heroes and treasures.” Read: ICRC asked to repatriate bodies of soldiers Before the IOC’s next move, there will be other signals, besides relocating events, about how world sports deals with Russia. Norwegian politician Linda Helleland, a former vice president at the World Anti-Doping Agency and longtime critic of Russia, said she will promote a policy at the Council of Europe that urges sports organizations to exclude Russian athletes from international competitions. Upcoming events include next month’s world figure skating championships, World Cup soccer qualifying this spring and the world track and field championships in Oregon in July. World Athletics is unique in that it has taken a tough stance in the Russian doping saga since 2015. Russia has been limited to only a handful of athletes at recent major championships, and that is not expected to change before summer. “We now witness brutal actions in the Ukraine. We can’t let Russia get away with it again with no consequences,” Helleland said. The biggest test, however, will be how the IOC responds to Russia’s eligibility for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine both came directly after the close of the Winter Olympics, with Russia enjoying success on the playing field and a long gap before its next appearance on sports’ biggest international stage. “We’ve been giving him a free pass for over a decade, so why would Putin not think he could get away with this?” Massaro said. “Of course the Olympics are part of this. And here we are again, and this time, he’s crossed the Rubicon in the most profound way.”

In her mind, Cathy Chen pictures a scene that she herself says could be drawn from a TV drama: Falling into the arms of her husband after long months apart, when he meets her off the plane from Beijing. Scooping up their two young daughters and squeezing them tight. “I just imagine when we’re back together,” the Olympic Games worker says, “and I just can’t control myself.” So athletes from countries where the coronavirus has raged can compete in the Olympic host nation with few infections, China’s workforce at the Winter Games is making a giant sacrifice. Severing them from lives they were busy living before the Olympic circus came to town, more than 50,000 Chinese workers have been hermetically sealed inside the Great Wall-like ring-fence of virus prevention measures that China has erected around the Games, locked in with the athletes and Olympic visitors. Read: For Asian American women, Olympics reveal a harsh duality The Olympians jet in for just a few weeks with their skis, skates, sleds and other gear. Chinese workers who cook, clean, transport, care for them and otherwise make the Winter Games tick are being sequestered inside the sanitary bubble for several months. As Olympians bank memories to cherish for a lifetime, their Chinese hosts are putting family life on ice. The sacrifice has been made larger by its timing: the Olympic run-up overlapped with the ushering in on Feb. 1 of the Lunar New Year, the biggest and most precious annual holiday in China. As their loved ones feted the advent of the Year of the Tiger, Olympic workers hooked up with them as best they could via video calls from inside the “closed loop.” That is the soft-sounding name Chinese authorities have given to the anti-viral barrier they’ve built with high walls, police patrols, thickets of security cameras, mandatory daily tests and countless squirts of disinfectant — separating the Winter Games from the rest of China. Chen found a spot in the workers’ underground canteen of the main Olympic press center for a New Year video-call with her husband, Issac, and their two daughters, Kiiara, aged six, and 18-month-old Sia. They were gathering with extended family for a celebration dinner. Chen keeps a screen grab from the call on her phone. She also has a photo of the four of them posing together on Dec. 26, the day Chen flew from their home in southern China to take up her Olympic job in Beijing. She works at a Chinese medicine exhibition space in the Olympic press center. Initially hesitant about the prospect of months apart from her family, Chen subsequently decided that the opportunity to mingle with overseas visitors and promote the pharmaceutical company she works for couldn’t be turned down. She is also hoping for triple pay for having worked through the Lunar New Year holiday. “My boss is happy,” she said. “Because it’s tough work.” Her Games will end with the closing ceremony next Sunday. Like all Chinese workers when they exit the bubble, she will then be quarantined in Beijing for a week or two. Only then, a full two months after she kissed them goodbye, will come the much-anticipated reunion with her family. “I can’t wait one more day,” she said. “I miss my younger baby most.” Because China’s ruling Communist Party does not allow workers to organize independently and with no free trade unions, there’s not a whisper of public complaint about labor conditions inside the bubble. Many are doing mundane and repetitive tasks and working weeks without days off. Battalions of cleaners constantly wipe and disinfect surfaces. Hospital doctors have been re-tasked to the relatively unskilled job of taking oral swabs for the daily coronavirus tests that are mandatory for all games participants. Volunteers and guards count people in and out of venues, tracking numbers with ticks on sheets of paper. But none will be heard griping publicly about the Olympic endeavor that the Communist Party is using to showcase its rule. The bubble has been in force from Jan. 4, a month before President Xi Jinping declared the games open. After five weeks of loop life, the most critical things workers will say is that they’re losing track of time, that days resemble each other, and that they’re longing for a break from canteen food: too bland for those from regions with cuisine laced with fiery chili peppers, too unvaried for the many who long for home cooking and comforts. Publicly, on the other hand, everyone agrees how privileged they are to be doing their bit, no matter how small. And all say that locking them in is a small sacrifice to prevent the coronavirus from jumping the barrier to their families, friends and everyone else outside. More than 1.2 million tests had turned up 426 positives by Day 8, but there were no reports of contamination leaking from the Olympic bubble. Volunteer worker Dong Jingge misses her grandparents and has an unglamorous Olympic task: She guards the door of a walled-off dining space for Olympic visitors subject to extra health monitoring because they previously tested positive. She counts them in and out, and asks them to disinfect their hands. Read: How China got blue skies in time for Olympics The interactions are improving her English, the 21-year-old student enthuses. Her highlight so far was bumping into International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. He gave her a small metal lapel pin of the Olympic rings. Her mother, outside the loop, was thrilled. “Such a rare opportunity, an unforgettable moment,” she messaged when Dong posted a photo of her prize. Scheduled to also work through the Paralympic Games in March that follow the Olympics, Dong expects that her total stay inside the loop and post-loop quarantine will together add up to nearly three months. Olympic driver Li Hong says he’s living his “dream” ferrying visitors and workers from venues on his overnight shift. He has been told to expect the equivalent of just under US$80 per day, which should add up to a tidy sum when he gets home by the end of February, after two months in the bubble. But he’s in it for the experience, he says, not the money nor the expectation that Olympic service might look good on his membership application if he tries to join the Communist Party. “I said to myself, I’m over 50. In my lifetime, I should serve the country,” he said. “It feels great.”

The blue skies greeting Olympic athletes here this month are a stark change from just a decade ago when the city’s choking air pollution was dubbed an “Airpocalypse” and blamed for scaring off tourists. Beijing’s air still has a long way to go, but is measurably better than past years when smog often made it difficult to see nearby buildings and people wore masks to protect themselves from pollution, not COVID-19. The city’s notorious pollution also made news in 2016, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself jogging in the haze through Tiananmen Square with a smile on his face. Some mused on social media that he was trying to ingratiate himself with Chinese authorities. Yet at this month’s Beijing Games, the air is clear enough for athletes to see the mountains surrounding the city. A look at what’s behind the transformation. Also read: Emboldened China opens Olympics, with lockdown and boycotts WHAT CHANGED? After pollution hit record levels in 2013 and became a source of international attention and widespread public discontent, China launched an ambitious plan to improve its air quality and said it would fight pollution “with an iron fist,” according to a recent report from the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago. That was also around the time the country bid on this month’s Winter Games. The ensuing efforts were similar to the measures China had previously taken to ensure clear skies for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, but on a larger scale, the report notes. Tougher emissions standards were imposed on coal-fired plants and the number of cars on the road was curbed to cut vehicle emissions. Local officials were given environmental targets, and coal-fired boilers in homes were replaced with gas or electric heaters. The government’s reporting of air quality data also improved. Jia Pei, a 30-year-old Beijing resident who enjoys exercising outside, said the improved air quality puts him in a better mood. “In the past when there was smog, I would feel that I was inhaling dust into my mouth,” he said. IS BEIJING’S AIR CLEAN NOW? Despite the progress, Beijing’s annual average air pollution last year was still more than six times the limit laid out by the World Health Organization’s guidelines. And the concentration of coal-burning industries that still surrounds the city means it remains susceptible to bad air days, said Lauri Myllyvirta at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki, Finland. When those happen can depend on factors like car traffic or how much wind there is to blow away smog. Also read: Clap, don't chant: China aims for 'Zero COVID' Olympics Still, Chinese officials hail the country’s achievements. Last year, they say there were 288 days of good air quality days in Beijing, compared to 176 days in 2013. HOW IS HEALTH AFFECTED? The effects of air pollution can be visceral and include irritated eyes and difficulty breathing. “You could hear people coughing all over because of it,” said Myllyvirta, who was living in Beijing until 2019. Children, older adults and people with health conditions including asthma are more likely to feel the effects. The very fine particles that make up air pollution can get deep into people’s lungs and have been linked to health problems including irregular heartbeats and decreased lung function. Poorer people might also be more vulnerable if they can’t afford air purifiers or need to work outdoors, said Guojun He, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong and co-author of the report from the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago. WHAT’S NEXT? China has committed to being carbon neutral by 2060. And though the country still relies heavily on coal for electricity, He said it has made significant progress in curbing emissions and is rapidly developing clean energy from sources like wind and solar. “When it’s possible, I think in general, the transition is going to be happening and it’s actually happening right now,” He said. In the meantime, he noted the government can also take short-term measures when it wants, such as temporarily shutting down factories. That can help ensure clearer skies for big political or social events, like the Olympics.

There is a photograph from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics that captured curling fans’ hearts worldwide. In it, Canadian curler John Morris and American rival Matt Hamilton sit side by side, arms draped around each others’ shoulders, grinning faces inches apart, beer cans mid-clink. It was a moment that perfectly captured the spirit of curling, a sport best known for its sweeping but perhaps best loved for its socializing. Yet it is a moment that will likely be impossible to repeat in the socially distanced world of the Beijing Games. “One of the things I love about curling is being able to curl against my friends and then enjoy a weekend or a week around them, as well as playing cards and having a beer,” said Morris, who won the gold medal in mixed doubles in Pyeongchang and is hoping to do the same in Beijing. “That’s the best part of curling. On the ice is great, and that accomplishes my competitive drive, but the actual going to cool places, playing with and against your friends — that’s been really hard.” Read: Inside the Olympic bubble, looking for China — or ‘China’ Of all of COVID-19’s cruelties, the necessity of distance has caused particular angst throughout the curling community. This is a sport built around closeness, from the pregame handshakes between opponents, to the postgame drinking sessions, in which the winners typically buy the losers a round. That tradition, dubbed “broomstacking” for the original practice of opponents stacking their brooms in front of a fire after a game and sharing a drink, all but vanished after the coronavirus emerged. Curling competitions were canceled. Ice rinks where the athletes trained were shut down. And curlers, like much of the world, were forced into isolation. The Beijing Games are taking place inside an accommodation and transport bubble that is cut off from the rest of the city. The International Olympic Committee’s playbook warns athletes to stay at least 2 meters (6 feet) apart except during competition and to minimize any physical interactions “such as hugs, high-fives and handshakes” — common sights at curling matches. The stakes for slip-ups are huge; those who test positive are sent to quarantine and could miss their event altogether. Bye-bye, broomstacking. “All that’s gone away, and that’s a real challenge,” said Hugh Millikin, a vice president with the World Curling Federation. “You touch fists or elbows, but it’s just not the same and it doesn’t necessarily get you that connection with your opposition which is really the cornerstone of what curling’s about. I certainly have worries about how soon we can get back to it.” On the ice, the coronavirus also forced changes, Millikin said. Training sessions were adjusted to limit the number of sweepers to one at a time, instead of the usual two. While curlers typically cluster around the house — the bullseye-shaped target at the end of the ice sheet — they had to stand apart. And some curling clubs required players to practice in masks, which is difficult given the vigorous sweeping and frequent shouting the game requires, Millikin said. “When you’re sweeping pretty hard, you’re breathing pretty hard, too,” he said. The closure of ice rinks forced many curlers to come up with creative training solutions. Two-time Canadian women’s curling champion Kerri Einarson practiced on a homemade rink on Lake Winnipeg, a throwback to curling’s conception 500 years ago on the frozen ponds of Scotland. Einarson’s father and a neighbor cleared a patch of ice on the lake’s surface and drilled in a chunk of wood to serve as a hack, the block that curlers push off from before gliding down the ice. Pandemic-related store closures meant there was nowhere to buy paint, so they were unable to mark the ice with a target. Still, the experience proved cathartic for Einarson, who struggled with the lack of socializing. “We couldn’t even celebrate wins with anyone after we were in the bubble,” she said. “It didn’t really feel like winning, which is tough. Even afterwards when you get home, you couldn’t even go and celebrate with your friends and family. It didn’t feel like curling at all.” For the U.S. Olympic curling teams, the cancellation of crucial competitions was the biggest stressor, said Dean Gemmell, director of curling development at USA Curling. For long stretches, all they could do was practice, and even that was tough. Players from Minnesota and Wisconsin had to travel long distances to find open rinks, on top of juggling their jobs and families. Read: Olympic teams raise concerns over quarantine hotels The teams engaged in scrimmages with each other, but those don’t prepare players for the Olympics the way real competitions do, Gemmell said. “A big part is just learning how to control your emotions in events that matter,” he said. Yet despite the yearning many curlers feel for their sport’s beer-sharing days of yore, curling’s social aspect is precisely what makes it so risky during a pandemic. A study last year by Canadian doctors who played in a curling tournament that suffered a COVID-19 outbreak found a key transmission route appeared to have occurred off the ice, at the curlers’ buffet lunches. Of the 18 teams participating, only one team avoided contracting the virus — and that was the team that shunned the lunches and other social events. COVID-19 nearly derailed the dreams of Tahli Gill, a member of Australia’s first curling team to make it to the Olympics. On Sunday, the Australian Olympic Committee announced Gill and her teammate were being forced to withdraw after Gill, who had the coronavirus before the Games, returned a series of positive tests. But later in the day, the committee said the medical expert panel had determined Gill’s levels fell within an acceptable range, and the Australians were allowed to compete, going on to win their first game of the Olympics against Switzerland. Before heading to Beijing, Gill said she and many other curlers were just grateful that some competitions were eventually able to go ahead but that the isolation had taken a toll. “Curling is such a family,” she said. “It’s slowly getting back to the new normal, I guess. I don’t know if it will ever be the same again.”

More leaders of foreign countries and international organizations have of late extended Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people and conveyed their wish that the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics will be a complete success. The goodwill was expressed in messages and letters sent to General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as through other means. Russian President Vladimir Putin extended greetings to the Chinese people for the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, saying that the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will be a major event of global significance. Putin said he is convinced that China's extensive experience in the excellent organization of representative international competitions will make it possible to hold this global festival of sports of the highest level. Putin added that he is looking forward to visiting China and attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, said the Beijing Winter Olympics is an auspicious event for the CPC and the Chinese people in an important year in their pursuit of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and their new journey towards the Second Centenary Goal. The event also marks another great victory secured by China against the backdrop of an unprecedentedly severe pandemic, added Kim, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission. It demonstrates that no difficulty or challenge can prevent the Chinese people -- rallied closely around the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core -- from courageously marching forward, he said. The Beijing Winter Olympics, he added, is a festival to the people and athletes of all countries across the world aspiring after peace, friendship and solidarity. He also expressed his confidence that it will certainly be a simple, safe and splendid Olympic event and write a brilliant page in the history of international sports. The Olympics is a symbol of human solidarity, said Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, adding that he is confident that the Chinese government and people will overcome the impact of COVID-19, successfully host the Winter Olympics, and usher in the new year with fruitful results. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expressed warm congratulations on the grand opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, wishing China greater achievements and new victories on the path of realizing the Chinese Dream. Expressing his sincere wish for the complete success of the Beijing Winter Olympics, First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said he believes that the grand gathering will become a major historic event that demonstrates China's great potential. Czech President Milos Zeman wished all Chinese people strength and courage in the new year and success in achieving all goals, and wished the Beijing Winter Olympics, the world's biggest upcoming sports event, a complete success. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said he believes that the whole world will witness the success of the Beijing Winter Olympics. He also wished the Chinese people happiness, health and prosperity. Extending his greetings to the Chinese people, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said that as a global sports event, the Beijing Winter Olympics is of self-evident importance to the world and conducive to the development of winter sports, and that he is honored to be part of it. Other leaders extending greetings and wishes include Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the Fourth King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fifth King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Tunisian President Kais Saied, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir Mayardit, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Bahraini Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Senegalese President Macky Sall, Comorian President Azali Assoumani, Seychellois President Wavel Ramkalawan, Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadera, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, Cote d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouattara, Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Gambian President Adama Barrow, Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio, Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, Serb Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Milorad Dodik, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, President of the Commonwealth of Dominica Charles Savarin, Surinamese President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas Cornelius Smith, Antigua and Barbuda's Governor-General Rodney Williams, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley, Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown, Fiji's Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Director-General of the World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Francesco Rocca.

The last time the Olympics came to China, he oversaw the whole endeavor. Now the Games are back, and this time Xi Jinping is running the entire nation. The Chinese president, hosting a Winter Olympics beleaguered by complaints about human rights abuses, has upended tradition to restore strongman rule in China and tighten Communist Party control over the economy and society. Xi was in charge of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that served as a “coming-out party” for China as an economic and political force. A second-generation member of the party elite, Xi became general secretary of the party in 2012. He took the ceremonial title of president the next year. Xi spent his first five-year term atop the party making himself China’s strongest leader at least since Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Xi was dubbed “chairman of everything” after he put himself in charge of economic, propaganda and other major functions. That reversed a consensus for the ruling inner circle to avoid power struggles by sharing decision-making. Read:Xi stresses common development, win-win cooperation The party is crushing pro-democracy and other activism and tightening control over business and society. It has expanded surveillance of China’s 1.4 billion people and control of business, culture, education and religion. A “social credit” system tracks every person and company and punishes infractions from pollution to littering. Xi’s rise coincides with increased assertiveness abroad following three decades of China keeping its head down to focus on economic development. Xi wants China to be “the greatest country on Earth, widely admired and therefore followed,” said Steve Tsang, a Chinese politics specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “The world where China is top dog is a world where authoritarianism is safe,” Tsang said. Democracies will ”need to know their place.” Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi enjoyed a privileged youth as the second son of Xi Zhongxun, a former vice premier and guerrilla commander in the civil war that brought Mao Zedong’s communist rebels to power in 1949. At 15, Xi Jinping was sent to rural Shaanxi province in 1969 as part of Mao’s campaign to have educated urban young people learn from peasants. Xi was caught trying to sneak back to the Chinese capital and returned to Shaanxi to dig irrigation ditches. “Knives are sharpened on the stone. People are refined through hardship,” Xi told a Chinese magazine in 2001. “Whenever I later encountered trouble, I’d just think of how hard it had been to get things done back then and nothing would then seem difficult.” Beijing is pushing for a bigger role in managing trade and global affairs to match its status as the second-biggest economy. It has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors by trying to intimidate Taiwan — the island democracy that the ruling party says belongs to China — and by pressing claims to disputed sections of the South and East China Seas and the Himalayas. The party has ended limits on foreign ownership in its auto industry and made other market-opening changes. But it has declared state-owned companies that dominate oil, banking and other industries the “core of the economy.” Beijing is pressuring private sector successes such as Alibaba Group, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, to divert billions of dollars into nationalistic initiatives including making China a “technology power” and reducing reliance on the United States, Japan and other suppliers by developing processor chips and other products. That, combined with U.S. and European curbs on Chinese access to technology due to security fears, is fueling anxiety global industry might decouple or split into markets with incompatible auto, telecom and other products. That would raise costs and slow innovation. Xi, 68, looks certain to break with tradition again by pursuing a third term as party leader at a congress in October or November. He had the constitution’s limit of two terms on his presidency repealed in 2018. That reversed arrangements put in place in the 1990s for party factions to share decision-making and hand over power to younger leaders once every decade. Even before Xi took power, party officials complained that group leadership was too cumbersome and allowed lower-level leaders to ignore or obstruct initiatives. Officials defend Xi’s efforts to stay in power by saying he needs to ensure reforms are carried out. Xi led an anti-corruption crackdown whose most prominent targets were members of other factions or supported rival leadership candidates. The campaign was popular with the public but led to complaints that officials refused to make big decisions for fear of attracting attention. Xi has called for a “national rejuvenation” based on tighter party control over education, culture and religion. Many of the changes are hostile to ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, pro-democracy and other activists and independent-minded artists and writers. Social media groups for gay university students have been shut down. Men deemed insufficiently masculine were banned from TV. Read: China orders lockdown of up to 13 million people in Xi’an An estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim minority groups have been confined in camps in the Xinjiang region in the northwest. Activists complain Beijing is trying to erase minority cultures, but officials say the camps are for job training and to combat radicalism. They reject reports of force abortions and other abuses. Xi oversaw the 2015 detention of more than 200 lawyers and legal aides who helped activists and members of the public challenge official abuses. After the coronavirus emerged in 2019, Xi’s government suppressed information and punished doctors who tried to warn the public. That prompted accusations Beijing allowed the disease to spread more widely and left other countries unprepared. Beijing extended its crackdown to Hong Kong following 2019 protests that began over a proposed extradition law and expanded to include demands for greater democracy. A national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, prompting complaints that Beijing was eroding the autonomy that had been promised when the former British colony returned to China in 1997 — and ruining its status as a trade and financial center. Pro-democracy figures have been imprisoned. They include Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old former publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, which shut down under government pressure, and organizers of candlelight memorials of the party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on a pro-democracy movement. A big potential stumbling block to achieving Xi’s ambitions is the struggling economy. Growth is slumping after Beijing tightened controls on use of debt in its real estate industry, one of its biggest economic engines. That adds to the drag from politically motivated initiatives, including tech development and orders to manufacturers to use Chinese suppliers of components and raw materials, even if that costs more. “Xi himself weakens the economy rather than strengthening it,” Tsang said. “If you mess up the economy, he’s not going to make China the dominant power in the world.”

In a rare show of bipartisan solidarity in the polarised US Capitol, the Senate came together on Tuesday to pass sweeping legislation designed to strengthen Washington’s hand in its escalating geopolitical and economic competition with China. By a vote of 68 to 32, the 2,400-page US Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 brought together a coalition of progressives, moderates and conservatives who, despite their intense disagreements on nearly every other consequential policy issue, have become united in their view the Chinese government under the rule of Xi Jinping has become a threat to global stability and American power. “The world is more competitive now than at any time since the end of the second world war,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor moments before the vote. “If we do nothing, our days as the dominant superpower may be ending.” Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Read: Senators say US donating vaccines to Taiwan amid China row “This bill could be the turning point for American leadership in the 21st century, and for that reason, this legislation will go down as one of the most significant bipartisan achievements of the US Senate in recent history.” The bill, which includes about US$250 billion worth of spending, touches on nearly every aspect of the complex and increasingly tense relationship between Washington and Beijing. It includes billions of dollars to increase American semiconductor manufacturing, a sign of growing urgency in Washington that the US has become dangerously reliant on Chinese supply chains. It bans American officials from attending the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, and declares Beijing’s policies in China’s far-west Xinjiang region a genocide, echoing the position of the US State Department and multiple parliaments around the world. Some US$2 billion of spending would be earmarked solely as incentives “to solely focus on legacy chip production to advance economic and national security interests, as these chips are essential to the auto industry, the military, and other critical industries”. It contains a range of provisions meant to strengthen US ties with Taiwan and US military alliances in the Pacific, including the Quad, an increasingly formalised pact between the US, Australia, India and Japan ” and still others to crack down on Chinese influence on US campuses, in international organisations and online. “This is an opportunity to compete with China at the research level,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Tennessee Republican, said before the vote. “This bill will strengthen our country’s innovation in key technology fields of the future, areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and communications, and this bill also is a game changer in terms of giving universities all over the United States an opportunity to participate in game-changing research.” The legislation also authorises new sanctions on Chinese officials for a range of crimes, including cyberattacks, intellectual property theft and, in Xinjiang ” where human rights groups cite United Nations reports and witness accounts that as many as 1 million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities are held in “re-education camps” ” against perpetrators of “systematic rape, coercive abortion, forced sterilisation or involuntary contraceptive implantation policies and practices”. Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and insists that the camps are vocational training facilities. Read: Slow to start, China mobilizes to vaccinate at headlong pace Now the issue shifts to the House of Representatives, which has already begun considering a number of China-related bills, the largest being the Eagle Act. Eventually, if the House passes its own legislation, the two chambers will have to reconcile any differences in their respective bills before they can send them to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Biden has used the US competition with China as justification for a range of domestic and foreign policies, and is almost certain to sign a final bill once it reaches his desk. For various reasons, including stated concerns about rising US debt and individual amendments not being added to the bill, a handful of the Senate’s frequent critics of Beijing voted against the legislation. They included Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, who said the cost of the legislation was too high despite “the threat (the Chinese government) poses to our national security”. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “I think the bill is important, whether or not we’re talking about the competition with China,” said Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “It’s clear that the United States needs to do more, and I think this is a really important effort and it sends an important message as well.” “I think there is widespread acknowledgement among both Democrats and Republicans that we need to be smarter and do better in terms of meeting the broad array of challenges that China presents to our political, economic and security interests,” she said. “There’s a sense that China poses a clear and present danger, if not an existential threat, and that if the US fails to step up and meet this challenge at this particular moment in time, it may not have another opportunity.” The Senate vote followed months of debate in the chamber. In February, Schumer asked numerous Senate committees to draft China legislation of their own, which he ultimately combined into the expansive bill that passed on Tuesday. Asked in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday whether he would support the funding requests in the bill, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would “welcome” the opportunity. Read:US to swiftly boost global vaccine sharing, Biden announces “I have to tell you again that we really applaud this initiative,” Blinken said. “It’s going to give us new tools, new resources to deal more effectively with the competition, and I very much welcome the opportunity to work closely with you, members of this committee, other relevant committees to put this into practice,” he said. Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have already agreed to some changes to the Eagle Act, including adding clearer language calling for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Politico reported, citing people involved in the discussions. Republicans say they want more concessions to support a final version, including stronger language in support of democracy in Taiwan, according to the Politico report.  

Some kind of boycott is almost sure to affect next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics.

The Chinese authorities intend to organize the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in line with the earlier approved plans despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Monday.

The city of Sapporo is the first to officially bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics and becomes the early favorite after the Japanese Olympic Committee approved its candidate file late Wednesday.