“From ‘One World-One Dream’ in 2008 to ‘Together for a Shared Future’ in 2022, China has taken an active part in the Olympic movement and consistently championed the Olympic spirit,” he said.

“The Olympic Winter Games will open tomorrow evening and the world is turning its eyes to China. China is ready. We will do our best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games,” he was quoted as saying by Chinese state media.

The February 4-20 Games make Beijing the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics.

Rights groups have long criticised China for human rights violations citing its treatment of Uygurs and other Muslim minority groups in the border region.

The US move was soon followed by its major allies including Australia, the UK and Canada. Countries that later announced similar boycotts include Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.

Athletes from these countries will still be competing in the Games.

IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly defended his organisation’s choice for the 2022 Olympics host nation, saying the IOC was not a political body nor was its mandate to influence the laws of sovereign states.

Beijing has decried the rights allegations as “ideological prejudice”.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg on Monday became the first foreign dignitary to arrive in Beijing for the Olympics, followed on Thursday by Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso, on his first visit to China since taking office last April.

Top-level dignitaries arriving on Thursday included Singaporean President Halimah Yacob, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand and South Korean parliamentary speaker Park Byeong-seug.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN General Assembly president Abdulla Shahid and World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also arrived the same day.

The guest list “simply reflects the current world’s attitude towards China”, according to Xiaoyu Pu, associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Noting the smaller turnout, mainly from developing countries within China’s circle of influence, Pu said that Beijing was prepared for such an outcome.

“From China’s perspective, in the 2008 Summer Olympics, it was a rising power eager to demonstrate its status on the world stage in 2008. But now, it has arrived, becoming a country with global influences. It is no longer that desperate to prove itself. That is the key change in China’s mentality,” he explained.

Other high-level European representatives expected include those from Poland, Serbia and Monaco. Also present will be dignitaries from Mongolia, Pakistan, Argentina, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Leaders from the five Central Asian nations will attend as well. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, who has just survived violent unrest back home, arrived on Thursday, as did President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan.

“The Western countries that are engaging in strategic and ideological competition with China turned their backs on the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but not to the extent like in the Cold War, as their athletes are still competing,” Pu said.

The 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games were hit by boycotts during the Cold War era.

Pu said Putin’s attendance shows “continued strengthening of ties between China and Russia” as both face intensifying rivalry with the West, and are drawn together by closer ideological background and personal rapport between their leaders.

Meanwhile, developing countries and China’s neighbours were also “willing to give [China] ‘face’” because of their close economic ties, Pu said, referring to the Chinese concept of showing respect and honour.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the diplomatic boycotts would only deepen the popular belief among Chinese nationalists that there was a Western conspiracy to halt China’s rise.

Rather, the Winter Olympics will become another opportunity for the Communist Party of China to “demonstrate the advantage of its governing model and strengthen its legitimacy” ahead of a major conference later this year, Wu said.

Xie Maosong, a senior researcher with Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, said in-person meetings with foreign dignitaries will underscore President Xi’s confidence in China’s strict Covid-19 containment strategy and the prospects of the country gradually opening up its borders “when the time is right”.

Xi has not left China since the coronavirus emerged more than two years ago.

“To host so many foreign dignitaries face-to-face clearly shows Xi is confident about what China is doing in controlling Covid-19,” Xie said. “With the Winter Olympics’ Covid-19 control experience, it will be more confident in its preparations to gradually open up its border later this year.”

The Winter Olympics is also “vital” to Xi’s plans for northeastern China’s struggling rust belt, and the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Xie said.

“It has brought an infrastructural ‘leap forward’ to Hebei [province’s] Zhangjiakou city, which hosts the Olympic Village, National Ski Jumping Centre and Cross Country Ski Centre. The new Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway shortens the travel time to only 47 minutes, making the city part of Beijing’s one-hour economic circle.”

The development of the northeast, home to China’s three coldest provinces, has been under great pressure as economic restructuring faces challenges and people continue to leave.

“Developing a massive winter sports fan base will bring higher quality growth to those provinces’ economies, as they are the best places for winter sports in China,” Xie noted.