Beijing's Winter Olympics may prove to be a losing proposition for totalitarian China

© 2022 Peter Free

 

07 February 2022

 

 

Do friendliness and common sense, at least occasionally, go together?

 

We Americans should hope so.

 

China appears to be making a mess of its international public relations. Its zero-COVID policy is (reportedly) literally imprisoning Olympic athletes in way that cannot help but greatly lessen the PRC's image around the world.

 

That's a 'yay' in my American book.

 

Maybe we can scrabble up some humanity points, provided that we free ourselves from a similarly totalitarian mentality.

 

 

Details

 

The Daily Mail reported the following today:

 

 

Dozens of athletes thrown into virus isolation at China's zero-Covid Winter Olympics have laid bare their misery - describing 'crying like crazy' after being hauled out of bed at 3am before being fed miserable food in rooms too small for exercise.

 

Beijing is attempting to hold a virus-free event in the midst of a pandemic, cutting off competitors and their teams in a bubble where tests must be taken every day, with anyone who tests positive dragged off to isolation.

 

But conditions in isolation are reportedly dire. Valeria Vasnetsova, a Russian biathlete, claims she was served the same inedible meal three times a day for five days in a row - and that it left her so emaciated that her 'bones [were] sticking out'.

 

Head of German team Dirk Schimmelpfennig also blasted 'unacceptable' conditions for his athletes, saying isolation rooms are too small, not hygienic enough, the food is poor and PCR tests that athletes must take to free themselves are not being given.

 

Natalia Maliszewska, a Polish speed skater, described being repeatedly moved into and out of quarantine over successive days due to conflicting Covid test results, an experience she described as a 'trauma' that left her 'crying and crying'.

 

© Chris Pleasance, Life in the Olympic gulag: Athletes are 'crying like crazy' in hellish quarantine with miserable food where 'hope is dead' as DOZENS miss out on their events after testing positive and being carted off to isolation camps, Daily Mail (07 February 2022)

 

 

The article continues with more examples.

 

 

Sure, it could all be CIA-sponsored propaganda — but . . .

 

The reports are believable.

 

Especially so, in view of China's, now two years long, very heavy Zero COVID hand.

 

 

Thus, I tentatively predict that . . .

 

. . . hundreds of Olympians will go home to their respective countries and be, for the most part, darn glad to be there.

 

If so, the Chinese Communist Party will have dealt itself a solid setback, with regard to achieving the favorable international public relations that it needs in order to further its Belt and Road Initiative.

 

In this self-weakening respect, the PRC appears to be partially following the former Soviet Union's atrocious public relations record.

 

Memories of that anti-human disaster linger, especially here in the West, even today.

 

 

The moral? — Adam Henry nations tend to get themselves identified as such

 

We United States folk should take note.

 

There was once a time, when Americans were liked and admired. I would like to return to those characteristics.

 

China's self-induced Olympics Adam Henry-ness is giving us the opportunity to reclaim Freedom's Brand.