1How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life forevermore. [Psalm 133:1-3, NRSV]
[L] Beijing’s National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the ‘Ice Ribbon’; [M] The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 emblem, inspired by 冬, the Chinese character for “winter”; [R] Olympic ski-jumping venue Beijing 2022.
Staring down the gargantuan challenges posed by the unrelenting, fast-mutating coronavirus that had all but crippled the 2021 Summer Olympics in Japan, Beijing on Friday, 4 February 2022 put on a spectacular and stunning show of culture, technology and artistry on the 2022 Winter Olympic Games’ opening night. The ceremony was directed by the multiple international film awards winner Zhang Yimou, who also directed the 2008 Summer Olympic Games opening spectacle. Beijing is the first city in Olympic history to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games. Just as the 2008 opening brought the international audience to a dizzying height in a breathtaking show, this 2022 gala, scaled-back to reflect the “simple, safe and spectacular” ambitions of the IOC and the Beijing Olympics organizers, served up a stunning treat of history and symbolism in a mesmerising splash of marvelous designs, lights and colours. The creativity and technical display of the latest in cutting edge digital innovations, are said to have scored many Olympic firsts. China, it is reported, has again set the standard in staging international sports for many years to come.
Unlike the focal theme of 5,000 years of Chinese culture at the 2008 opening, the 2022 ceremony does not have any introductory thematic chapters. Nevertheless, every minute of the ceremony, Zhang points out, is dotted with elements of Chinese culture and history. Across the globe, media reports and social media posts highlight a long list of creative and stunning “best” for this Beijing Winter Olympics 2022. The world was treated to a breathtaking display of an ice sculpture of the Olympic rings, the colossal ice cube, and the giant snowflake-shaped cauldron holding the Olympic flame. The entire show is dazzling and rich and we wish to watch it again if possible.
At this time, our sentiments pull us back to the spirit of the Olympic Games. This is where all sports men and women and all peoples of good will are united in peace-loving inspiration from the opening ceremony at Beijing 2022.
- At the team-parade, each team enters the arena through a door of welcome that displays traditional patterns from across China. These patterns change 30 to 40 times, showing the long history of Chinese culture and China opening her door to the guests from around the world. Awaiting the international athletes into the arena are thousands of enthusiastic volunteers waiving, dancing and shouting “China welcomes you!” China unifies. China welcomes.
- Watch carefully, and you see that each team is preceded by a snowflake symbol, formed as a Chinese knot that bears the name of the participating team. At the end of the parade, all these snowflakes coalesce to form one giant snowflake which accommodates the Olympic Torch, and it still resembles a Chinese knot.
- The design for this year’s Winter Olympic flame and cauldron is a daring creation, the first of its kind. For the past century or so, the Olympic flame would light up a very big torch. This time the torch is held by the last two bearers of the relay and inserted into the cauldron, without lighting a giant flame. This arrangement promotes the idea of low-carbon and environmental protection. At the same time, this main torch occupies the centre and mutually complements the giant, crystal snowflake made up of smaller snowflakes that represent the 90 participating countries. In a stunning way, perhaps for the first time in the history of the Olympics, it expresses the idea that the world is one family, unified in the Olympic spirit. This is a bold innovation, which may very well set the path for future Olympics, in line with low-carbon practices and environmental protection.
[L] The giant snowflake with the cauldron surrounded by one unified heart formed by dancers denoting the participating teams; [R] The Olympic flame burns in its cauldron after being ignited during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games on Friday. Photo: Xinhua.
Efficiency and technical finesse, coupled with high-quality facilities and venues, have earned high praises from seasoned diplomats, the IOC and team-managers alike, but most particularly international competitors who openly express their profuse gratitude for the high-tech living quarters and generous spread of food, and the top-quality competition venues. These venues are spread over three competition zones across Beijing (北京), Yanqing (延庆) and Zhangjiakou (张家口). In the words of the Czech ambassador to China, only the People’s Republic of China is capable of staging these highly complicated winter Olympic games at the best of times, much less at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the entire world with menacing variants.
The Olympic Games, with their unifying power around sports, are a force for good. China has consistently offered the world just that. Recall the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games where the official motto was “One World, One Dream” (同一个世界 同一个梦想). It called upon the whole world to join in the Olympic spirit and build a better future for humanity. This year, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is dedicated to working “Together for a Shared Future” (携手共创未来). If Western governments would direct more effort building up their countries rather than meddling with others’ under the pretext of promoting “democracy”, this world would be a much safer, healthier, more prosperous and better place to live in. But the America-led western nations would not have it that way. Unity, solidarity and world peace is not their cup of tea. “Divide and conquer” is the only operative principle they know. It’s a principle entrenched in their blood. So by any duplicitous means in their book, they would do their level best to create a negative image for China. Listen instead to the words of Prince Albert II who was at the Games: “Beijing 2022 has added a very important difference to the wonderful motto that the Olympic movement has, because in this difficult period of pandemic, there is a greater urge to come together in peace and harmony, to do things together, to celebrate together. Beijing 2022 can inspire us in this sense of community. The international community coming together in peace and in harmony is sending a tremendous message to the whole world. I hope that everybody will hear this message.” There is a shared future for humankind, if the West would shed its hegemonic and imperialist demons.
Messages of peace and solidarity framed the speeches at the Opening Ceremony. Beijing 2022 shows the world how it is really possible to write a new chapter on international relations, in which nations come together in peace, to boldly face common challenges that menace humanity such as the current pandemic, to work and collaborate in building a community with a shared future for humankind. This is truly what China wishes to do for herself and for the rest of the world. China wants prosperity; her people will work for prosperity. But China knows that peace is the foundation for prosperity.
Malcolm Clarke, a two-time Oscar-winning British film-maker and an Academy Award winner, is filming a documentary in China. As a keen, fiercely independent, observer of fascinating development in China, and using “my eyes and my brain” as key tools, he aims in his documentary to build up “a body of work which tracks the changes that happened one very, very brief moment in the (human) civilization’s history.” Of great significance is that, he wants it to be fair, without bending the truth, without taking advantage of anybody, without telling lies. His mission is to contribute to truth-telling, he says, in regard to that moment of history of human civilization. In the face of the huge amount of misinformation with which the U.S. deliberately floods and controls the world consciousness, what Clarke does is all that we really ask for: honest truth-telling, free of all that political chicanery and moral depravity which typifies the American treatment of China and much of the rest of the world. What Clark has found by way of incontrovertible evidence is that the Chinese people of this generation are happier and better off than their parents who, in turn, are happier and better off than their parents.[1] This is the glorious achievement of China, making it an object of envy to the rest of the world.
The real world, however, is held hostage by the American-led propaganda factory. While the sports world is ablaze with excitement over the Beijing 2022 Opening and the ongoing competitions, this excitement does not inadvertently dovetail with insane conversation on issues of Xinjiang’s alleged “genocide”, “human rights” and “forced labour”. Shamelessly and regular as clockwork, the American-led propaganda factory is churning out one biased article about China after another. True to its character, America kick-started an international “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Winter Games on the by-now nauseating Xinjiang allegations. We may have to confront these shameless western allegations in a future post, but at this time, we confine ourselves to briefly mentioning three points of observation that bear immediate relevance to Beijing 2022.
First, the untrustworthy Americans who recently pulled a fast one on its allies by quitting its 20-year old Afghan-war in a hurry and leaving its allies exposed to serious danger on the ground, have again acted duplicitously on this so-called “diplomatic boycott.” As the country that has the biggest contingent of athletes at the Games, the U.S. team tops the list with 224, followed by Canada (217) and Russia (214). China has 173, followed by Switzerland with 166.[2] And quietly, the U.S. went on to apply for China visas for dozens of officials. So much for the American boycott! The list of officials had of course to be vetted by the Chinese authorities and apparently not all names passed scrutiny and were denied entry. The Chinese did not want troublemakers on its soil during the Games.
Second, by now, any discerning observer of the American-led diplomatic boycott could smell the rat from a great distance. That rat has a name, called “strategic lies”. Lying, creating fake news, and making false allegations have been the staple diet of American politics for the past many decades. Donald Trump is but a passing illustration, albeit crass and embarrassing. This is what U.S. does all the time around the globe in order to shore up its hegemony. The goal is always to destabilize an opponent, imagined or real. That goal is justified as “national interest”.[3] It has nothing remotely relevant to the Olympic Games. Instead of promoting or in anyway facilitating the success of the Olympic events, the American aim was to foil and obstruct the smooth execution of the Games. By now, the world can clearly see, this American “dream” has fallen flat at Beijing 2022.
Third, as China sought to build peace and unity through hard work and hospitality, the hegemonic U.S.A. is bent on creating disunity through disinformation. On this, the American propaganda factory has the country’s powerful media as its lackeys. Instead of praising director Zhang for including a young female Uyghur Olympics athlete for the honour of lighting the Olympic flame, major American and Western media are full of negativities about the event. A few days into the Games, when we switched on CNN’s programme on the ongoing competitions, all that we got was an hour-long disinformation on Xinjiang as “bad news”. It was truly disgusting. Are the Americans, who have for years been infamously invading Muslim nations and killing Muslims around the world, in love with Muslims in Xinjiang? If the Americans and the West really cared about the Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang, why are they boycotting Xinjiang at every turn, including a sworn refusal to buy any of Xinjiang products in an attempt to cripple the economy of that region? It is not at all difficult to see the political agenda in those naked American-led lies – to destabilize that region. When you are conscious that Afghanistan is right next door, you know that the nasty Americans have itchy hands on Xinjiang. Their Xinjiang-lies are crumbling around the world. The brilliant success of Beijing 2022 is contributing to that crumble.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, February 2022. All rights reserved.
You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to jeffangiegoh@gmail.com. You can also be dialogue partners in this Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry by sending us questions for discussion.
[1] Malcolm Clarke on documenting China at https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-12-06/Malcolm-Clarke-on-documenting-China-15Mk9a2J3lC/index.html.
[2] Source: International Olympic Committee (as of Feb. 4).
[3] See Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton University Press, 2008); “Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics with John Mearsheimer” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe5f5dcrGE; David Sedwick, The FakeNews Factory: Tales from BBC-land (Sandgrounder, 2020); “British researcher exposes Western propaganda against China” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y30SZSSzXRk; and Cyrus Janssen, “The Real Reason Western Media Lies about China” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4cwf458k4.