Today, Explained - China’s Winter Olympics (feat. Covid-19)

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

The Games don’t begin until February 4, but the drama around the pandemic, free speech, and diplomatic boycotts has been building for months. NPR’s Emily Feng explains from Beijing. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It seems like it was just mere months ago we were talking about the hot mess COVID Olympics in Japan. And now it's already time to talk about the COVID Olympics in China. It might be a little early to determine whether it's going to be a mess or not, though. It's going to be a mess.

It's going to be an extraordinary Olympics. you've got the diplomatic boycotts and these geopolitical tensions press secretary jensaki announced the boycott citing china's ongoing genocide and human rights abuses and then you've got a population that has been trained to be hyper alert about every single covid case strict lockdowns of infected neighborhoods travel restrictions and the mass testing of entire cities. Basically, a country that's like the most anti-COVID bringing in thousands of athletes and journalists during a pretty bad time in the global pandemic. The Omicron variant is on the move.

Countries across the world are starting to see a dramatic rise in the number of the daily recorded cases of COVID-19. So it'll get interesting. Emily Fang is NPR's Beijing correspondent. The Games don't get underway until February 4th, but she's been reporting on the drama. That torch has been lit for months. The Winter Olympics are always a showcase for any country. And so China saw this as a way to highlight how the country had developed since the 2008 Summer Olympics. But when you add COVID onto it, now it's also going to be a test of can they control the epidemic and maintain their zero COVID policies,

even with thousands of people flying in. And we spoke to you not too long ago about China's zero COVID policies. Tell me what they're doing to somehow pull off winter games while trying to maintain this sort of zero COVID environment. The word of the day in Chinese media is closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop. A closed loop.

This is their central idea. They're going to create what they call closed loops all around Beijing. Thousands of athletes and officials will be confined to a closed loop. Basically, bubbles of walled-off hotels and venues accessible only to them. Everyone going in and out of these facilities will have zero contact with the rest of greater China. So that includes things like transport, trains and cars, all within this physical bubble. They're even keeping our trash separate, Michael. And then once we're there, there are PCR tests every single day. If any one of those are positive,

it is straight to a quarantine facility. So you've got this conceptual loop where everyone is shut inside. They can eat and compete and interact sort of as normal, but they're basically cut off from the rest of greater China. So it's kind of like what we saw maybe back in 2020 with these NBA and NHL bubbles, but for an entire Olympic Games, is that fair? Yes. These will be bubbles like the world has never seen. Tokyo sort of did this with the Summer Olympics and they have done this in other countries.

But China is taking this to another level. These bubbles are going to be incredibly tightly sealed. Some of them are right in the middle of downtown Beijing. So the risks will be quite high if anyone messes up.

As a result, they're asking all staff who are serving these athletes to go into the bubble, so to speak, two to three weeks in advance. So most of the staff are already inside. Wow. In some cases. These special vehicles that are bringing the athletes and journalists from site to site are off limits. Authorities in Beijing have even gone so far as to say, if you see one of these vehicles, do not touch it. Like under no circumstances, even if this car is in a car crash and you see people in medical need, Do not approach these people. Call 911 or, you know, the Chinese equivalent of 911 and a special ambulance specifically designated to serve Olympic personnel will come by so that there is no risk of COVID transmission. And China has indicated

that people might even be held criminally liable if they break any COVID rules. So this concept of a bubble has been used before in other sports events, but China is going to enforce it, I think, to a degree that is more strict than I think anyone has experienced. This is what gets me worried because I don't think that athletes and journalists who are coming in are fully mentally prepared or they haven't fully grasped just how seriously China takes anti-COVID policies. I'm sure athletes and journalists have read the handbooks that Beijing has put out and seen what the testing regimen is going to be like. But in practice, it is going to be implemented with zero forgiveness and zero room

for negotiation. So what does this practically mean for an athlete who, say, you know, has been training for four years straight for these games who potentially tests positive. There's just no question they're on the first train to quarantine town. Yeah, there's no negotiation. If you test positive, you are immediately isolated in your own individual hotel room. According to the International Olympic Committee Playbook for Athletes and Team Officials, page 36, once you've tested positive for COVID-19, you will be isolated in a hospital or isolation facility, depending upon whether or not you have symptoms. You may be discharged from isolation once you've gone three days without a fever and tested negative for COVID-19 on two consecutive days. Huh. So for someone who tests positive

like the week before their competition, there's no guarantee that even if they're asymptomatic, they will get out in time to attend their competition. And that could be devastating for an athlete who's been training for years.

And so for athletes, it's a huge concern because in the bubble, there's going to be minimized physical interaction. But I can imagine that on the plane ride over or even eating in the Olympic canteen that some kind of local transmission might happen. So there's that X factor that athletes can't control and whether or not they'll be able to compete might kind of be out of their hands. If you're a close contact of someone, you test negative for COVID. You don't have symptoms.

According to the International Olympic Committee Playbook for Athletes and Team Officials, page 37, if you are confirmed as a close contact, you will have a long list of rules to follow. Here are a few. You will have to be quarantined in a single room. Eat alone. Have your temperature checked twice a day. And test negative for COVID-19 14 times over the course of seven days. You will be allowed to compete if you test negative six hours before your competition. So there has been some thought put into place to allow athletes to participate,

even if they've been exposed. And I have to note that these rules are way more relaxed than what actually happens in the rest of China if you're a close contact or if you come down with COVID. So Beijing has clearly made some allowances to let the Olympics happen, but there are still going to be very, very strict rules in place. And I can imagine some athletes and teammates might be upset when they run up against these rules. It's hard because then, you know, if you get it, you can't compete in your own sport. And that's like, if I had to say my biggest worry about going over to Beijing, it's getting COVID. And for those athletes who are trying to participate here, they have to download

an app for sort of self-tracking. What's going on there? Yeah. So I mentioned how complicated it is to get into China. So Beijing authorities have designed this app that will help manage all those travel logistics and track your health status each day, whether or not you're a close contact. It's also supposed to be a messaging forum. And the journalists and athletes coming to attend the Games all need to get this. It turns out that this mobile app is not encrypted basically whatsoever. Thousands of athletes, officials, and reporters traveling to China for the upcoming

Winter Olympics risk having their online communications hacked through the official app for the event. And so it is very easy for whoever designed the app to access all the health records, travel history, and messages that athletes and journalists are uploading into this app. On top of this, the app apparently contains a censorship list of politically sensitive terms and phrases that if wanted, the app developers could activate and then block any discussion that uses these politically sensitive terms, terms like Xinjiang or Tibet. So to me, this is such a stark contrast to what the last Olympic Games were supposed to mean for China in 2008. In 2008, China hosted the Summer Olympics, and it was supposed to be a way to open up the country, to liberalize its Internet controls.

And there were specific clauses in China's bid for the Beijing Olympics that they would lessen their media censorship and maybe even free up their Internet. They would at least give free Internet to people within the Olympic facilities. This time around, not only has none of that happened, but they're asking everyone who comes to the games to download this app that basically allows whoever developed it to spy on these attendees. So the contrast is really ironic to me. Sounds like you might want to toss your phone in the trash after playing these games. Many media freedoms organizations are recommending people bring a burner phone to China. I think that's probably the right advice because the chances are, if you bring up a device, you put it on the Wi-Fi, chances are you're going to go home with some amount of Chinese malware on

your system and that's going to allow them to take data back. How do their own citizens feel about athletes getting a pass and loosening of restrictions to allow a bunch of foreigners into the country to compete in these games. How did the Chinese people feel about that after making so many sacrifices for so long? I think most people haven't actually read the playbook. What they are seeing are the barriers going up around the closed loops. The closed loops right now are being walled off by chicken wire and sheet metal. And most people I talk to feel pretty comforted by those barriers.

Everything is sealed off. How would you have any contact whatsoever with the foreign athletes inside? They've seen lockdowns before. They know how China deals with close contacts and positive cases.

Chinese health officials publicize the infected person's recent travel history, starting with their home. Oh, here we go. You can see here, this is one of the entrances and exits. It's gated off. They put these big blue barriers to keep folks from going in and out.

So they actually have a lot of trust in the process. And people living around say they trust authorities to keep infections within that space rather than let them spread across China. But that being said, people are really anxious because there have been several Omicron and Delta cases around the country. There are cities that are still under lockdown. There are parts of Beijing that are under lockdown as we speak because of positive cases. People worry that the Olympics could make rules even more strict in the next month. And so people are canceling holiday travel. Basically, everyone

I know has been hoarding food. Not that there's any sign Beijing as a city will go under lockdown or that food shipments in and out will be frozen. But there's always this fear in China that you could be locked down any moment. There have been horror stories of people stuck without food for weeks at a time inside their own apartments. Wow. So locals aren't exactly getting in line to watch these games, which I believe they're now not allowed to do anymore anyway. Well, due to a, quote, severe and complex COVID-19 situation, tickets for the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games will not be sold to the general public. Authorities were always a bit wishy-washy about whether they would sell tickets,

how these people would enter the stadiums, who would be invited to attend. They never officially confirmed that they were actually going to sell tickets. And this was a question they always dodged at press conferences when journalists like me would ask. So I suspect that they never planned on opening this up to the general public. And instead, what they'll have now is they'll invite guests, both foreign and Chinese, who are currently living in Beijing to attend, but expect the stands to be mostly empty and most foreign attendees to be diplomats and journalists, as well as maybe some high-ranking executives at multinationals working here. It sounds like China's taking every precaution here, though they are still loosening the rules to accommodate these games. But if this all goes haywire and there's massive breakouts and and, you know, one country's team is transmitting to another country's team and it's it's transmitting to officials or referees or whatever it is.

Could the games be delayed or even canceled because of Omicron? Is that on the table? No, absolutely not. It would just be too much of a PR fiasco for China. They would rather risk the fiasco of having massive transmission within the bubbles rather than cancel the games. Games. For Chinese leaders, the Games have become a symbol of how China has conquered the epidemic and how they're able to hold a global event like this. And so they have too much riding on having the Games continue as planned to cancel anything last minute like this. I do imagine that there are going to be some negative stories coming out in the next few

weeks about athletes who are pulled from their beds at 2 a.m. by people in hazmat suits because they've tested positive, or entire teams that protest because everyone's been designated a close contact and they cannot make their match. But China would rather have that happen than cancel the games overall. Thank you. digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an Aura frame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday and she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids. And so we wanted to surprise her with the Aura Frame. And because she's a little bit older,

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Emily, you mentioned earlier in the show that it's mostly going to be journalists and diplomats in the crowd during these Beijing 2022 winter games. But that being said, there's been a lot of diplomatic boycotting going on. Tell us more about all of that. A number of countries, particularly the U.S., have been leading a diplomatic boycott, meaning they're not going to send high-level officials to represent those countries during any of the game events. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.

So the U.S. started this, but they've quickly gotten other countries, mostly European ones, and Canada and Australia on board. As a country, indeed, as many partners around the world, we are extremely concerned. That is why we are announcing today that we will not be sending any diplomatic representation to the Beijing Olympic or Paralympic Games this winter. This was in response to human rights abuses that China has been perpetuating and that governments around the world have criticized. And instead of having a full boycott where even athletes are not allowed to attend, the U.S. is compromised by simply saying we're just not going to send official representatives.

U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRC's egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang. And we simply can't do that. That does not mean that U.S. diplomats won't be at game events. They just won't be there in an official capacity and they won't be attending, say, the opening ceremony. Other countries have stepped up and said, well, if the U.S. is boycotting, we're going to make a statement and send our leaders to show our support for China. So far, that list is quite short, but it includes Russia and Poland. They will send their presidents to attend the opening ceremony. Interesting. Remind people why these boycotts are happening

in the first place. They're happening because of human rights atrocities that China's been perpetuating. A UN panel says the region resembles a massive internment camp where more than one million Muslim minorities have been rounded up, detained and forcibly indoctrinated by the Chinese regime. And so China has undergone numerous rounds of sanctions from governments including the U.S. and various European countries. And as China inched closer to hosting the Olympics, activists and politicians in foreign countries have been questioning whether China is fit to host a global sporting event when ongoing atrocities are happening within its borders. And for China, this has been a huge headache because the Olympics, first and foremost for them,

is an opportunity to showcase their political system, their economic development, and to pull off this massive event during a global pandemic. China has been incredibly anxious about maintaining this image that the Games are well attended, that they're supported internationally, that they're open to foreign spectators. And so although they have said that they don't care if American leaders come. What the U.S. should do is to correct its attitude, practice a more united Olympic spirit and take China's concerns seriously. In reality, they've made a huge fuss about these diplomatic boycotts and basically every day in state propaganda,

the foreign ministry have been putting out statements criticising countries for politicising the Games. Do not politicise sports and stop calling for the so-called diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics so as not to affect the dialogue and cooperation between China and the US in important areas. If the US.S. insists on willfully clinging to its course, China will definitely take resolute countermeasures.

In making a huge fuss about these diplomatic boycotts, has the Chinese government had to address the reason for the boycott, their treatment of the Uyghur minority? They will mention it, but the discussion about Uyghurs and about China's policies in Xinjiang have become so controlled within China itself that most of the discussion is quite safe to have. China dismisses foreign media reports about detentions, about family separations as simply made up, as anti-China rumors. And most people in China tend to believe the Chinese state propaganda, that what China is doing in the region is for security or for the sake of economic development. So although the reasons don't come up that much, the reason is mostly these are

countries that are politicizing the games to constrain China. Sometimes Xinjiang is mentioned, but it's not as sensitive as you would imagine because the narrative has been so thoroughly controlled within China. But with all these countries coming out and saying, you know, we're sending our athletes, but we are also diplomatically boycotting these games. We have lots of problems with this government's actions. Is that setting up a lot of athletes to maybe make political statements or even take political action at these games? And how is China going to deal with that, if so? That's a huge risk for China. There are athletes already coming out and voicing support for Uyghurs or other groups that have been systematically targeted in China.

There is a genocide happening right now. Torture, rape, forced abortion and sterilizations. Family separates, arbitrary detention, concentration camps. This is all happening right now to more than 1.8 million Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region in northern western China. And the expectation is that there are going to be teams or individual athletes who will make some kind of political statement on the podium or during competition. China has come out and said that there will be, quote, certain punishment for athletes who do that. They have not elaborated what that punishment could be. The International Olympic Committee does have rules that say athletes are not allowed to make political statements that interfere with competition or with other athletes' ability to compete. But I imagine there could be some tense moments if athletes do decide to step up and say something within China.

Human Rights Watch, an advocacy nonprofit, the other day came out with an advisory cautioning athletes not to make political statements while they're in China because there is no legal guarantee that their safety will be protected. That's pretty astonishing to me because an organization like Human Rights Watch usually encourages that kind of activism and using one's platform to make a statement. But it shows that people are unsure whether or not they can safely exercise freedom of speech even inside international Olympic, if they're happening in China. I mean, the Chinese government is threatening to punish athletes, but there's no way the Chinese government jails, I don't know, an American or Australian or a Canadian athlete for speaking out about the Uyghurs, is there? No, but they could bar them from competing. They could deport them from the country. They could basically just interfere with the athlete's ability to compete.

And we'll have to see whether that leads to any kind of showdown inside the bubble. Hmm. Is there any chance any of this, though, has any real effect on how the Chinese government treats Uyghurs? Probably not, sadly. France's president calls the boycott insignificant and pointless. I don't think we should politicize this to make very small and symbolic measures. Either we say we're going to do a complete boycott, we're not going to send any athletes, or we're going to try to re-engage and have workable, useful actions. I'm more in favor of doing things that have a useful effect. This has been the criticism of a diplomatic boycott. It doesn't do anything to change the calculus to incentivize Chinese leaders to change what they're doing in Xinjiang. And China has itself said that what's happening in Xinjiang and also

other issues like Tibet are internal issues. It will not be swayed by other countries into changing its policies in these regions. And at this point, it's become a point of pride to basically double down on what they've done in these places. So what does that mean? Though these countries want to make a statement about China's policies and China's human rights abuses, none of them want to go as far as to actually bar athletes from participating in these games, though that is the thing that might have ultimately drawn the most attention to the plight of the Uyghurs, that China threw a Winter Olympics and nobody showed up. Yeah, that definitely would have gotten much more attention. That being said, even a full

boycott would not have changed China's policies in Xinjiang. It is something they've said time and again is their own business. They're not going to be pushed around by other countries. Policies in Xinjiang enjoy a certain amount of popular support within China from citizens who do believe these policies are making the region a safer place and are good for the Uyghurs because it promotes economic development. So China has no reason to undo what it's perpetuated in Xinjiang. And most of the damage has already been done. Families have been separated. People have been imprisoned. People have been horribly traumatized. Fixing those ills are going to take much more than just a boycott of an Olympic Games.

Emily Feng reports on China for National Public Radio. Our episode today was produced by Hadi Mawagdi, edited by Matthew Collette, engineered by Afim Shapiro, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Sean Ramos for him. It is Today Explained. Thank you. you