Chinese leader Xi Jinping views the Olympic Games — he has pored over venue blueprints and been involved in every aspect of planning — as a validation not only of his statecraft but also of the rise of a confident, economically robust nation that is rearranging the world order.
Beijing's second Olympics, opening this week amid the world's strictest COVID-19 controls, mass incarceration of minorities in Xinjiang, military threats to Taiwan and the dismantling of civil rights in Hong Kong, are a statement of defiance. They are a declaration that Xi's Communist Party no longer needs the acceptance of the West at a time when much of the planet is beholden to a patriotic and powerful China.
"The world is turning to China, and China is ready," Xi said in a video address to an International Olympic Committee session Thursday.
