Last week I watched the opening ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. It was an impressive show with fireworks, music, CGM videos, beautiful choreography, and, of course, the parade of athletes nation by nation preceded by the flags of each one. While I was watching I could not help but feel that something was not right. As impressive as it all was to see, there was an overwhelming sense that it was all unreal. Despite all the talk of peace on earth and the brotherhood of man, the vile human rights record of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the presence of its supreme leader Xi Jinping, cast a dark shadow over the whole thing. Xi holds three positions in the Chinese system: General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and President of the PRC. That makes him the undisputed absolute leader of China.
The harsh treatment by the Xi regime of the Uyghurs (pronounced “WEE-goors”), a minority ethnic group of Turkish background located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China, has been well documented. 12.8 million of them live in China and are mostly religiously Muslims. Some human rights observers are calling it genocide. According to the BBC, “Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls ‘re-education camps’, and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms. There is also evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised. Some former camp detainees have also alleged they were tortured and sexually abused.” (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037 ) The “re-education camps” are essentially concentration work camps where people are forced to do slave labor and are bombarded with communist ideological teachings.
Despite this solid evidence of human rights abuses by China, the Winter Olympics have gone on as planned with many corporate sponsors (including a number of American companies) and the NBC television network pouring millions of dollars into the Chinese economy. To NBC’s credit they have brought to light in some of their coverage the human rights issues. The United States government and other western countries have undertaken a “diplomatic boycott” of the games, but that only means they have no official government representatives present in Beijing and it really has little force.
So how do we as Christians react to this situation. First, we must recognize that the Olympic movement, whether in China or anywhere else, make no pretense to having a Theistic worldview. None of the ceremonies and events ever mention anything about God, Jesus, or any other religious leader. It is, at best, pure naturalistic humanism exalting humanity. Over the past 126 years the Olympic Movement has tried to see itself as above political and religious differences and as a secular force for world peace. The truth is, it has never succeeded in that endeavor. Political ideologies and conflicts have always, one way or another, made their way into the games. From Adolf Hitler using the 1938 Berlin Games as a propaganda platform for Nazism, to the attack by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, to Russia putting on a good face in Sochi in 2014 before invading the Ukraine (which they may be about to repeat), the Olympics have often served to further the aims of maleficent actors.
Thus, second, we must see how that plays very well into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Marxist and Naturalist worldview. We should not forget that the CCP is a hard core Marxist and Maoist organization. The history of world communism is one of oppression and death. In the last century as many as 100 million people were ruthlessly killed by communist regimes. Communist leaders like Xi are fanatics who still strongly believe in the philosophy of Karl Marx. They vehemently disbelieve in God. China’s harsh treatment of religious groups follows the long tradition of communist regimes doing all they can to wipe out belief in God. For a while Christianity was tolerated to some degree in China, but in recent years, under Xi, the persecution of believers has again intensified.
So, third, as we watch the Beijing Olympics, we have to keep in mind that all we see is carefully choreographed to put on the best face of Chinese society. Nonetheless, it is all an illusion. There is a hidden dark side that cannot be ignored. China is a growing economic and military world power. Its leaders have every intention of extending its influence and worldview throughout the world in this century, even overtaking the USA. As Christians we should do all we can to support human rights organizations and to encourage the United States government to bring pressure on China to cease its oppression. Furthermore, we need to pray earnestly for the growing numbers of our Christian brothers and sisters in China who are experiencing persecution by their communist rulers. Let us also pray that the people of China, as did those in many communist countries in the last century, will jettison its communist tyrants once and for all.