Some Western governments are staging a diplomatic boycott over the way China treats millions of its own people.
BEIJING -- The country where the coronavirus outbreak emerged two years ago launched a locked-down Winter Olympics on Friday, proudly projecting its might on the most global of stages even as some Western governments mounted a diplomatic boycott over the way China treats millions of its own people.
Fourteen years ago, a Beijing opening ceremony that featured massive pyrotechnic displays and thousands of card-flipping performers set a new standard of extravagance to start an Olympics that no host since has matched. It was a fitting start to an event often billed as China's"coming out." The host country itself claims some of the lowest rates of death and illness from the virus, in part because of sweeping lockdowns imposed by the government that were instantly apparent to anyone arriving to compete in or attend the Winter Games.
A line of people dressed in costumes representing China's varied ethnicities passed the national flag to the pole where it was raised - a show of unity that the country often puts on as part of its narrative that its wide range of ethnic groups live together in peace and prosperity. And China is pinning its hopes on Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old, American-born freestyle skier who has chosen to compete for her mother's native country and could win three gold medals.
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