As Winter Olympics end, will China’s hosting win medals for diplomacy?
- Negotiating controversies and Covid-19, the Games offered a window to a world much changed from 2008, when Beijing staged the summer edition
- Foreign leaders were received in person after the relatively isolated two years of the pandemic, but benefits to China’s image may take longer to assess
Although China was not expected to rival the leading traditional winter sports countries in total number of medals won, it was eyeing a diplomatic win from an occasion that has always been about more than sport.
The narrative of having achieved a great Olympics was already backed by the International Olympic Committee’s announcement on Saturday that the symbolic Olympic Cup award for the event would go to Chinese people for their “warmth, energy, hospitality and support”.
“Beijing 2022 could not have achieved this level of excellence without the support of the Chinese people,” IOC president Thomas Bach said.
At the root of international scrutiny of Beijing 2022 was scepticism over China’s suitability to stage a global event at a time when it stands increasingly at odds with the West.
The Olympics also represented the first high-level diplomatic event held in China in over two years, because its borders had been largely closed to foreigners since Covid-19 emerged in December 2019 in central China. That has essentially cut off in-person diplomacy, making any diplomatic presence at the Games an opportunity to replenish goodwill.
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