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The 2022 Winter Olympics and the genocide committed against the Uyghur ethnic minorities have a commonplace: China. It is the golden opportunity for communist propaganda to enhance the reputation of the Asian giant and to silence the voices of the victims internationally.
The 2022 Winter Olympics provide the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with a potential PR boost after going through a long period of crisis and global condemnation. Now, having allegedly overcome the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) — for which it evades responsibility — China needs to show itself strongly to the world.
Ahead of next year’s window, the Chinese regime has been effective in attempting to clean up its reputation by donating millions of vaccines to developing countries. This is underpinned by its strongest card, the growth of 2020, which has allowed foreign entrepreneurs to generate profitability amidst the decline of Europe and America in the wake of the lockdowns and the millions infected.
However, Xi Jinping seeks to show the world the fruits of Chinese communism with technological advances, strong infrastructure investment, and a seemingly solid society that hand in hand with the CCP regime resisted the pandemic. The Winter Olympic Games are the best scenario to achieve this goal.
It is worth remembering that China set in motion the narrative with which it intends to exalt communism by delegitimizing American institutions and their allies, by calling into question democratic values and freedom.
Genocide and forced labor in China, the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics
An investigation published by Adrian Zenz, a researcher on human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, reveals how China has a scheme of forced labor and racial persecution against religious minorities, especially Uyghur Muslims.
The Xinjiang region produces more than 20% of the world’s cotton and Zenz points out that most of the picking is done by hand. The report “estimated that 570,000 people belonging to a large number of minorities – Aksu, Hotan and Kashgar” – were forced to work in cotton picking.
Zenz adds that “Beijing’s programs in other ethnic minority regions, as well as prison labor, would likely add hundreds of thousands to the figure.” This 2021, according to the researcher, 1,600,000 people are at risk of being subjected to forced labor by the CCP.
China has built concentration camps in Xinjiang in order to sinicize Islam. The CCP’s policy in the region has been called “cultural genocide” against the Turkic minority group by human rights observers.
To this must be added the allegations made by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who noted that China commits genocide against religious minorities, based on “reports of enforced sterilization and abortion, forced family planning, and cultural and religious repression against Muslims in Xinjiang by the Chinese Communist regime”.
The 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the window to show the apparent success of Chinese socialism
The political crisis in Western countries and the mishandling of the pandemic have caused the strongest economies to suffer. The strict lockdowns and the large number of victims that have not yet ceased are evidence of decadence that China wants to exploit in the Winter Olympic Games.
China has benefited from American developments through intellectual property theft, espionage and bad business practices, as well as heavy capital investment by large American conglomerates.
Developing at home from innovative ideas from the West has allowed China to create its own technology, becoming a leader in technology patents and a competitive supplier for the 5G network.
A society that coexists with the Internet and high technology is the building block for the CCP to achieve its 2035 goal of reaching an average annual income of $30,000 for the middle class.
These advances have been challenged by U.S. and European sanctions, because behind them there is a strong violation of human rights, freedom of the press, and political persecution.
International organizations have expressed their concern about the holding of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China due to the risk it brings to the international press and visitors in view of the human rights violations in China.
The pro-regime media claims that journalists have the guarantees to cover the Olympic Games and strongly denies the existence of such violations.
The importance of a meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping
The meeting between Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart in Alaska marked a cold start to talks where China was hoping for a meeting between the two leaders.
The meeting between Biden and Xi would be critical to the resumption of friendly relations between the two powers, which would facilitate the Winter Games among other Chinese soft power policies.
China needs the best diplomatic relations to develop its 2035 plan, which in addition to overtaking the United States as world leader hopes to invade Taiwan, Japanese, Philippine, and Vietnamese territories, and the Olympic Games provide a great opportunity to establish diplomatic ties that will allow it to do so.
CCP hegemony comes once the United States and Europe remove sanctions on Beijing. A militarily robust China, with formidable economic growth and state-of-the-art technology, is the best scenario to evade responsibility for crimes against humanity and expand the communist narrative to the detriment of democratic values.
Camilo Bello is a consultant focused on Asia Pacific studies and has experience in strategic management. He has studied law in Colombia and is currently pursuing studies in language and history at National Taiwan Normal University. He has collaborated with Students for Freedom in Hong Kong and Taiwan // Camilo es consultor enfocado en estudios de Asia Pacífico y experiencia en gestión estratégica. Cuenta con estudios en Derecho en Colombia y actualmente se encuentra realizando estudios en lenguaje e historia en National Taiwan Normal University. Colaborador de Estudiantes por la Libertad en Hong Kong y Taiwán