With athletes arriving at the Beijing Olympic Village and enthusiastically sharing their experiences on social media, the Canadian delegation seems to be the most responsive, with various vlogs hitting the Internet, giving Chinese people a glimpse of the friendly side of this winter sports powerhouse. Some Canadian skiers wore uniforms decorated with tiger prints, and Catriona Le May Doan, Canada’s Chef de Mission for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, called the speed skating oval in Beijing “spectacular.” 

This is in stark contrast to the strained China-Canadian relations, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced late last year that he would not send officials to the Beijing Winter Olympics, using a “diplomatic boycott” to express his dissatisfaction with China’s so-called “human rights” issues. 

The athletes’ excitement is a proof of the charm of Olympic Games, which are an amazing creation of humankind. Even if there are great disagreements and even wars between various countries, the Olympics can provide a basic platform for communication and unification through fair sports competition, which is the original purpose of such an event. 

The Olympic Games has become a venue for athletes to show their values. Those in the best condition may be able to participate in three or more Olympic Games, but most athletes have only one opportunity which is impossible to give up. Therefore, individual American and Canadian politicians who try to discredit and boycott the Beijing Olympics will do great harm to their own athletes. 

From equipment to management, the Beijing Olympics are the ultimate example of large scale project management in every way. 

Thus it was hard to hide the excitement of Canadian athletes staying in the Olympic Village, since most of them are very focused and have devoted precious years to their chosen disciplines. Their perception of things around them is natural.

In a sense, it is a reinvention of Canadian soft power that their athletes are having fun in China, enjoying sports and the Olympics, while Chinese people sincerely expect them to perform well. That is what sports should be and what the Olympic spirit is all about. Those Western politicians who selfishly shout for a boycott should be ashamed of themselves, as the Beijing Winter Olympics will definitely be a stage to convey unity and joy of striving for excellence. 

The Canadian media once hyped that the Beijing Olympic plans “are already mired in politics and threatened by COVID-19,” interpreting all aspects surrounding the event from a negative perspective. But when their own athletes come to China and see for themselves how well China has prepared for friends from all over the world to participate in the Games, the stories Western politicians want to tell is bound to be unsustainable worldwide. 

This time, the US, UK, Canada and other Western media failed to dominate global opinion, and more countries have praised the Beijing Winter Olympics. It’s inevitable that China will face systematic attacks and conflicts from the West for a long time to come and across a number of  fields. However, as the pandemic disappears into the rear view mirror and China continues to open up to people around the globe, their experience in China will be a testament of the country’s development as well as a best counterpunch of the Western smearing. 

The Beijing Winter Olympics are great opportunity to introduce the real China to the world and debunk absurd Western narratives . Those media outlets will also gradually realize that they are doing this to tarnish their own credibility in the end. They have been writing jokes and making up stories for a long time and will continue to do so. But looking at the long term, there will be less and less marginal benefit of doing so, and China will prove everything with time in the way of positive exposition and documentation. 

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter based on an interview with Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn