Beijing to put Olympics under lock and key
Unhappy Chinese will not have their voice heard as winter sports spectacle to be held in a strict ‘bubble’
WHEN Zhang Hai tried to leave his house a few months ago, four plainclothes policemen roughed him up, hovering at the door for days and putting him under de facto house arrest without formal charge.
Mr Zhang – the first person in China to sue the government for its coronavirus cover-up – is among many activists being pressured to stay silent.
“The more they squash me, the more I want to speak out,” Mr Zhang told The Sunday Telegraph.
Exactly two years after Wuhan went into lockdown, China is still trying to control the pandemic narrative and even accelerating its campaign ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, due to start on Feb 4.
With the emergence of local omicron cases, Chinese authorities are taking no chances, rounding up dissidents and enforcing sudden lockdowns that have impacted millions.
They have even created a strict “bubble” during the Olympics to ensure there is no contact between local residents and visitors.
All arrivals will face severe movement restrictions, and will be required to do Covid tests daily. Nobody – athletes, journalists, as well as support staff, including waiters and janitors – will be allowed to leave venues.
Sports arenas and hotels that are part of the “bubble” have been barricaded, with 24-hour uniformed and plainclothes guards stationed every few hundred metres along the perimeter.
Many have hunkered down with blankets, fold-up stools, and giant tea flasks, trying to stay warm on 15-hour shifts in the cold. Police and squad cars are at official entry checkpoints.
Participants will be shuttled in official Olympic vehicles via designated traffic lanes, already marked on Beijing’s motorways. Officials have instructed residents to avoid all contact with Games transport, and not to help even if a road accident occurs, in order to maintain the “bubble” separation.
Some roads near Olympic venues have also been completely sealed, upsetting nearby residents wanting to see friends and buy groceries.
“I’m just trying to get over there; I don’t want to take a detour!” complained one woman from behind a barrier near where curling events will take place, pointing a few metres away to the other side of the street. “This wasn’t here the other day.”
“Many people would agree [China’s] strategy is not sustainable in the long run,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“But I think you have to admit this policy thus far has been quite successful in terms of making China sort of a safe haven…with extremely low levels [of cases],” he said. “Chances are, it might continue to be successful even for the Winter Olympics.”
But the Olympics “bubble” also means officials can control everything participants see and know of China during this period, including the movements of thousands of journalists.
They won’t be able to pursue stories independently or even organically explore Beijing.
There’s no risk, for example, of activists like Mr Zhang – whose father sought treatment for a thigh fracture and contracted Covid at the hospital in early 2020, dying within a week – bending the ear of a foreign athlete or journalist.
Mr Zhang sued the government for failing to properly notify the public, as he never would have had his father admitted into the hospital that fateful January had he known of the spreading
‘Those officials don’t care if peasants like us die … it makes me so angry’
coronavirus. “Those officials don’t care if peasants like us die…it makes me so angry,” he said. “The government must be held accountable. If they hadn’t covered it up, the world wouldn’t be in this situation. An origin investigation must be done.”
Advocacy groups have highlighted that China could very likely manage a stunning propaganda win, showing Games participants only the very best.
“The Olympics must not be allowed to pass as a mere sportswashing opportunity for the Chinese authorities, and the international community must not become complicit in a propaganda exercise,” said Alkan Akad, China researcher for Amnesty International.
Authorities have made clear that they won’t tolerate any sort of protests or political stands from visitors.
“Any behaviour or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment,” Yang Shu, a Beijing Olympics official, said this week.
Human rights groups have warned athletes to watch what they say incountry, suggesting they speak out upon returning home instead.
“Chinese laws are very vague on the crimes that can be used to prosecute people’s free speech,” said Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “And in China, the conviction rate is 99 per cent.”
Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who covered the early days of the pandemic, was sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a vague charge used in China to jail dissidents. Beijing is also not allowing public ticket sales, citing
Covid. Instead, it is hand-picking people already in China to attend events – another way that helps insulate against the risk of protests. China’s Covid strategy has been finetuned since the start of the pandemic – on top of lockdowns, including chaining people in their homes to curb spread, the government has added hi-tech ways to contact trace.
Before, there were more “rudimentary lockdown measures”, said Mr Huang. “Now, they have mass testing… [and are] more sophisticated in terms of using big data to track movements.”
After the Games, “there is a policy window for China to reconsider this zero-Covid strategy, and to introduce more flexibility,” said Mr Huang, also a professor at Seton Hall University in the US. “All this boils down to whether the top decision-makers are willing to give up that mentality.”