Opinion2022 Winter Olympics: Beijing risks backlash as athletes find powerful voice

Chinese Communist Party is feuding with many countries, high among them Winter Olympics heavyweights the United States, Canada and Sweden

The Games in Beijing will likely be complicated by worsening geopolitical tensions over the next two years

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The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing could be the most complicated in years when it comes to geopolitical tensions. Photo: EPA

Published: 10:00am, 11 Jul 2020Updated: 1:17pm, 12 Jul 2020

Will China’s growing geopolitical isolationism with a number of high-profile nations bring about a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in two years’ time?

The list of countries taking action against the Chinese Communist Party over Hong Kong’s new national security law alone includes the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom. The European Union’s relationship with China remains on shaky ground, and the country’s deadly border clash with India has made bilateral relations with the world’s second most populous nation tense.

Couple this with the spike in athlete protests sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement and the shifting sentiment towards what you can and cannot do while a national anthem is playing, and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing feels like a powder keg waiting to be lit. Relations between China and the United States, Sweden and Canada, three perennial Winter Games heavyweights, are at an all-time low.

Athletes have found they can get traction making political statements, be it taking a knee or raising a fist, and no nation is more well known for crushing dissent than China.

Some, like Mack Horton, who refused to take the podium with disgraced Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, have pointed their protests at one individual, but the essence remains – the perfect time to send a message is when the world is watching.

How it is all going to fly in the world’s biggest authoritarian regime in two years’ time is anyone’s guess.