Winter Olympics update
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The ice rinks have been smoothed out, and the brown mountainsides have been blanketed with fake snow. The Olympic flame is on its way to the heart of Beijing, where it will light up the night sky.

Despite a raging epidemic and months of worldwide debate, the 2022 Winter Olympics will begin as scheduled tonight in the Chinese capital.
This is an Olympics unlike any other, separated from its host city by a maze of towering barriers, thermal gates, and facial-recognition cameras.
Politics, demonstrations, and Covid procedures have become an inevitable part of the build-up to these Games, and events taking place outside the athletic arena over the next two weeks will garner just as much attention as those taking place on the ice and snow.

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How China responds will be a huge litmus test for President Xi Jinping, who is preparing for a historic third term in office this autumn.
“The world is looking to China, and China is ready,” Xi said ahead of the opening ceremony on Thursday.
The Games will provide a moment of national glory for China’s governing Communist Party, as Beijing becomes the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. It is also the first big worldwide event to take place within China since the country closed its borders in the aftermath of the original coronavirus outbreak two years ago.

However, popular enthusiasm for the Winter Games pales in contrast to 2008, when locals flocked to giant public screens around Beijing to witness the Summer Olympics opening ceremony, eager to be a part of history. This year, there are few watching parties in the capital that have been suffocated by heavy-handed snap lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions.
“I believe the Games will be deemed a huge success by the Communist Party; whether it will be recognized as such by other nations is another question,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

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