How China’s Two Olympic Games Changed China and the Olympics

Abstract

Did the Olympics change China, or did China change the Olympics? China was changed by hosting two Olympic Games in 2008 and 2022, although not in the way that was hoped for by the politicians and advocacy groups who sought to pressure China to improve its human rights record. Leading up to the 2008 games, both the Chinese organizers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gave a new level of attention to communications, hiring top public relations firms. After 2008, the Chinese government made a huge investment into foreign communications to strengthen its ability to counter negative voices in the international media. Over the next decade, the IOC implemented a corporate-style model of “social responsibility” and added a clause about human rights into the Host City Contract effective in 2024. The process of hosting two mega-events, and the demands of international sport, increasingly integrated China into the international order. This was seen in China’s first-ever recruitment of foreign-born athletes to its 2022 Olympic team, which suggested a new openness to immigrants. After only Bei**g and Almaty were left bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the IOC revised the bid procedures, with the result that the next four games all went to conventional Western powers. In the bigger picture, the world order was changing and the West was fighting back against its loss of preeminence.