While some labeled the 2022 Winter Olympics “the Genocide Games”, the event will be remembered as a propaganda victory for China’s government which sought to portray one of the world’s worst dictatorships as a ‘normal’ nation.
Still, there were moments, like when a news reporter from Dutch TV was suddenly strong-armed by a Chinese security guard in the middle of a live report.
And when videos posted by a Finnish skier of water pouring out of the ceiling and electrical outlets in her Olympic village apartment went viral, Chinese officials ordered her to delete the posts.
“The Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of the human spirit. This Winter Olympics was about a propaganda exercise to make the regime look good in the eyes of the world,” says Steven Mosher, author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order.
The Beijing Olympics were controversial even before they began and critics say they still managed to show China’s communist government for what it really is.
NBC rejected a TV ad intended to run during the Olympics that was funded by Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), which began with, “The world’s greatest athletic showcase. But just outside the show, rape, genocide, slave labor…”
The ad targeted the U.S. corporate sponsors of the games. NBC ordered the names of the sponsors blurred out.
Waltz told us, “I wanted to call out the American companies that are funding it all, AirBNB, Intel, Visa, Nike. It is just shameful and disgusting that American companies are turning a blind eye and funding this. And by the way, dictators love the Olympics. They love the propaganda platform. Everybody participating is turning a blind eye to their atrocities.”
The spot also included NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom, who says in the ad, “Stand for freedom. Defund dictatorships. When you see ‘Made in China,’ put it down.”
The Turkish Kanter Freedom, an outspoken critic of both China and the NBA, changed his name so that ‘Freedom’ would be displayed on his basketball jersey.
But his NBA career could now be over after the Boston Celtics traded him last week to the Houston Rockets, who then put him on waivers.
Some claim the NBA caved to pressure from China.
While there have been comparisons to the 1936 Olympic games held in Nazi Germany, China expert Mosher believes these games are worse.
“Worse because we didn’t know much about the concentration camps then, the persecution, the genocide of the Jews had not yet begun in earnest. Uh, but we know that there is genocide in real-time against the 12 million Uighurs in the far west of China, not to mention that they along with other dissidents are being cut up and literally having their organs harvested and sold.”
In 1936, the world not only went to Berlin but some athletes even offered the Nazi salute during opening ceremonies.
At these games, the U.S. and other nations chose to only declare a so-called “diplomatic boycott.”
The world still showed up, the games were held, and communist leaders were able to bask in their moment on the world stage.
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