The Beijing2022 Winter Olympics kick off in a week, putting sports at center-stage following preparations that have been clouded by diplomatic boycotts and the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced the Games into a tightly sealed bubble
Beijing will become the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Games, and some venues from 2008 will be re-used, including the Bird's Nest stadium, where the opening ceremony will again be overseen by famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.Register
As in 2008, the Olympics have again cast a spotlight on China's human rights record, which critics say has worsened since then, leading Washington to call Beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims genocide and prompting a diplomatic boycott from the United States and other countries. "The Chinese Communist Party will be hoping that the Winter Olympics 2022 can do something to reverse this position."
The scandal involving Chinese tennis star and former Olympian Peng Shuai, who accused a retired senior politician of sexually assaulting her and then disappeared for several weeks, added fuel to criticism of China's hosting of the event. "I think China has shown - with Peng Shuai most recently - that they are willing to go to really extreme measures to silence any sort of rhetoric that they find displeasing," she said, declining to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.
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