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Opinion | How will the Beijing 2022 Olympics differ from Tokyo 2020?

  • China is out for a soft power win with the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, but will have to deal with Covid-19, boycott chatter and geopolitical tension
  • Tokyo 2020 offered a playbook on how to host a Games in the pandemic landscape, but Beijing has more to worry about than their Japanese counterparts did

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Children wave Chinese national flags at the welcome ceremony for the flame of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. China now follows in Tokyo 2020’s footsteps for the second Games during the pandemic. Photo: EPA

Beijing 2020 kicked off its torch lighting ceremony like any Olympics does, with a protest.

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Human rights activists sneaked past police and unfurled a banner that read “No Genocide Games” and waved a Tibetan flag in Greece at the ancient Olympic Stadium last week. Two people were arrested and major news networks across the planet picked up the story.

Protests are now the norm when it comes to the Olympics. Tokyo 2020 was interrupted at almost every point of its torch relay with Japanese protesters who didn’t want to see the Games go ahead due to a potential spike in cases and deaths related to Covid-19.

That same “No Games” movement showed up at the opening ceremony on July 23 outside the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. However, once the Games began it was tough for any of their rallies or signs to garner media attention amid all the incredible athletic achievements.

Tokyo did a good job hosting the Games, but its soft power win was muted as the pandemic did not ease and there was no tourism or international exposure boom from hundreds of thousands of overseas fans pumping money into the local economy. They got the win, but it was an ugly one.

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China are going to have to manufacture fans for the Games, but if anyone can do that, it’s them. Photo: Xinhua
China are going to have to manufacture fans for the Games, but if anyone can do that, it’s them. Photo: Xinhua

China was surely taking notes, and now it has two playbooks to draw from. One on how to host one of the world’s largest sporting events during a pandemic, and another on how to handle protests, demonstrations and negative press. Given Tokyo 2020 was delayed a year, Beijing 2022 could have striking similarities to its Asian counterpart.

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