China hosting the Winter Olympics with much fanfare and fancy amid the continuing Covid19 pandemic by spending billions of dollars on an unprecedented scale has raised many eyebrows. The massive scale of expenditure has reduced the event’s appeal in many countries worldwide. Still, China Olympics is extraordinary because of the enormous effort to create a ski-jump arena made from a blanket of artificial snow laid on steel cladding along a hillside. To develop high-speed rail links between Beijing and the venues. Carrying out massive PCR testing campaigns of workers and participants to combat the menace of the coronavirus cost millions of dollars.
Such extravagant spending for the china winter Olympics has made people doubt whether the Games are worth such hefty bills, mainly due to the depleted tourism benefits and the burden of maintaining the vast stadiums once the games are over.
China’s unique perspective on Olympics
China’s stand about hosting the Olympics is entirely different from how the rest of the world perceives the Games. China looks upon hosting the Games on a spectacular scale as an opportunity to accelerate the infrastructure development that would create millions of employment opportunities and drastically bring down transportation costs. For a long, Beijing has invested heavily in developing wide-scale infrastructure, and the china winter Olympics is an occasion that provides the perfect platform for achieving lofty targets speedily. Moreover, China hopes to create a growing interest among its people in various winter sports like ice hockey, skiing, curling, and other similar disciplines that could increase consumer spending, especially in the country’s chilling northeast that lags in economic development.
There is also a political ambition hidden under the massive efforts of hosting the Games on such a grand scale. It is an opportunity to demonstrate the supremacy of china at the Olympics and, at the same time, showcase the country’s unity and the absolute confidence reposed in the leadership of Xi Ping. The last-mentioned agenda is perhaps most important to the country’s rulers.
The international prestige of the country is paramount
It will be wrong to assess the impact of the Olympics china exclusively from a sports and economic perspective. China’s vision and purpose for holding the games are entirely different from how the world sees it. The country’s leadership considers that establishing its international image and prestige is the supreme goal regardless of its spending. Nothing is too expensive to uphold national prestige on the internal stage.
Cost overruns are a big concern
Despite the urge to establish China’s global leadership position at any cost, the overspending on hosting the china Olympics 2022 has been a concern for Xi Ping. He acknowledged that besides the spiraling costs, there were reasons to worry about the economic slowdown triggered by the Covid19 pandemic and the constraints of global supply chains. He urged upon streamlining the event to make it splendid yet safe and straightforward.
Although the pandemic is making the Olympics more expensive, China believes that the spending is worth fulfilling its plan for global image building.
