The CCP Is the Big Loser in the ‘Genocide Games’

If these Games have shown the world anything about China, it’s not what Beijing hoped they would

Human rights activists hold banners as they protest against the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games to mark Human Rights Day, in Taipei, Taiwan, on Dec. 10, 2021. Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

The Olympic Games aren’t over yet, but as far as Beijing’s hope for a boost in international standing, the Games are indeed finished.

Hosting the Winter Olympics is not turning out to be quite the global reputation builder that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had hoped or expected it to be. Treating athletes like Uyghurs seems to be the Beijing way–old habits die hard.

A Public Relations Disaster

Sure, the Games in Beijing are a nod to China’s massive global influence, but they’ve also become a platform to show the world the nasty face of the CCP.

From a public relations perspective, the Games have been a disaster. Some of the problems that have arisen could have easily been anticipated but probably not avoided.

In fact, Beijing’s problems began before the Games even started.

For example, Beijing was hit with another outbreak of the CCP virus before the Games began. The CCP’s response was to lock down certain areas, as well as entire cities, affected by the outbreak.

A general of the Olympic Village of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games at the National Sliding Center in Yanqing district, Beijing, is seen on Feb. 3, 2022. Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images

To make matters worse, a second outbreak occurred of a hemorrhagic strain of the virus—or perhaps a different one?—also came about.

Quite frankly, either or both of them should have been cause to cancel the Games.

But for whatever reason, that Games began on schedule. Predictably, since then, athletes have come down with the disease and have missed events.

Think of that situation: you’re an athlete who’s dedicated years of training and sacrifice in order to compete in the Olympics, only to lose your opportunity by catching a disease allegedly created by the same country that’s been allowed to host the Games.

Of course, every host nation faces the risks of making mistakes and looking foolish because unexpected things happen. But athletes catching the CCP virus, being quarantined and missing their events because the Games are being held in China—the source of the pandemic—isn’t one of them.

Did anyone expect that to not happen?

The ‘Genocide Games’

Even the opening ceremonies proved to be a disaster.

In light of Beijing’s unrivaled abuse of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the CCP must have thought that using a cross-country skier of Uyghur ethnicity, Dinigeer Yilamujiang, to start the Games would help remake China’s global image.

One may wonder just what sort of “remake” the CCP had in mind?

Was the world to suddenly believe that communist China is a country to be admired or even emulated?

Predictably, that idiotic stunt had the opposite effect.

Torchbearers Zhao Jiawen and Dinigeer Yilamujiang hold the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics at the National Stadium in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022. Toby Melville/Reuters

Yilamujiang’s lighting of the Olympic torch literally put a spotlight on the CCP’s brutal treatment of that minority. It also gave legs to the derogatory term, “Genocide Games,” by which the 2022 Beijing Olympics are now commonly referred, which is as right and proper as it could be.

The CCP was rightfully mocked around the world for that particular brand of stupidity.

One wonders how anyone on the CCP’s Olympic planning committee could have imagined that such an act would have any other effect than the one it had?

Evidently, those are the kinds of decisions that get made when only one voice—the Party’s—matters.

Perhaps not so ironically, after finishing 43rd in her event, like over a million of her Uyghur countrymen, Yilamujiang simply disappeared and has not been seen since.

Who’s Watching?

A bright spot—if it could be described as such—is the fact that these Games are suffering from a horrendously low viewership. Most of the world just isn’t watching, with about half as many viewers tuning in as last Winter Olympics.

But for those who are watching, the CCP is showing just how afraid it truly is. That may be the most important outcome of all in these Olympic Games.

Describing the CCP as fearful may not seem rationale, as it is the vast majority of China’s 1.4 billion people that fear the Party.

But it’s actually the case.

The CCP is afraid of everyone and everything.

For what other reason than fear would the Party find it necessary to censor torchbearer Yilamujiang, Chinese tennis champion Peng Shuai, and gold medalist free-skier Eileen Gu?

The CCP censors these young female athletes for one simple reason: they fear what these young women say.

The Party leadership is showing the world that they’re not strong enough to handle the opinions of few female athletes.

That’s the biggest victory of these Games so far.

A Fragile, Inadequate Leader

On a more personal level, imagine how fragile a national leader—an absolute dictator, no less—must feel that he cannot withstand even the slightest bit of criticism from a handful of young women?

The CCP really can’t help looking foolish and brutish because that’s the nature of the Party—absolutist rule that has been the cruelest in modern history.

How fitting for a worldwide event that the CCP looks to as a means of supporting its legitimacy, demonstrates its illegitimacy on every level.

Is the reality a cluster of pathetic, fearful tyrants ruling and ruining China lost on the rest of the CCP members?

One can’t imagine how it could be so.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.