Together for a Shared Future—Together for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
Li Chao
Chinese Ambassador to Estonia
The 24thWinter Olympics will take place in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, China between February 4 and 20, followed by the Winter Paralympics from March 4 to 13. It will attract worldwide attention. Beijing will host the Olympics again after hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics. China would become a country hosting Olympics twice within 14 years as Beijing serves as the first “Dual Olympic City”across the globe. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the preparations for the Winter Olympics. Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited the Winter Olympic sites to inspect preparations for five times. Now the Chinese government and people are going full steam ahead to present a grand gathering for global winter sports-lovers and showcase Beijing’s charm as the host city of both Summer and Winter Olympics.
To present a splendid Olympic Games and engage 300 million people in winter sports are solemn pledges China made to the world, and a goal we have been committed to meet since winning the bid in 2015. For more than six years, China has been focusing on popularizing winter sports southward, westward and eastward. As a result, 346 million Chinese have set foot on ice rinks and snow resorts, making winter sports popular. The principles of hosting a “green, inclusive, open and clean” Olympic Games have been effectively implemented in constructing the venues, organizing the events and providing services for the Games.
With a view to being green and high-techWinter Olympics, the preparations for Beijing 2022 feature on the perfect combination of high-tech and lowest energy consumption. The first dimension is “being green and environment-friendly”. In recent years, Beijing has been stepping up afforestation efforts. The city’s overall forest coverage rate has reached 44.4 percent and the rate of mountain areas reached 58.8 percent. All three Winter Olympic villages in Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou meet the three-star green building standard. All 26 venues in the three competition zones will be powered 100% by green energy for the first time in history, which means that Beijing will save 4.9 million tonnes of standard coal and reduce 12.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. The Zhangbei renewable energy flexible DC grid test and demonstration project has been put in place to convert all that wind energy into clean electricity and transmit it to the three competition zones in Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou through the northern Hebei grid. Besides the Olympic venues, it also lights up numerous households in Beijing. In outdoors snow-making, water will be stored via multiple channels, recycled and conserved with technologicalsupport. This will meet the need for snow-making during the Olympics without affecting local water security or ecological environment. The full use of the heritage of the 2008 Summer Olympics venues is also a major feature of the upcoming Winter Olympics,with six 2008-Olympic-venues used as main competition venues after simple renovation. It is fair to say that China has fully acted on the philosophy of hosting a green Olympic Games. This is part of our effort not only to deliver on the promise of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, but also to offer China’s solution, wisdom and contribution to the world on how to approach the relationship between man and nature as well as development and environmental protection. The second dimension is “high-tech and smartness”. During the preparation process, the latest scientific and technological achievements ranging from 5G, AI technology to intelligent robots and digitalization have been continuously integrated into various parts in venue construction, rehabilitation training, and logistical service, such as various intelligent robot services, wind tunnel laboratory for auxiliary training, accurate weather forecast system, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, closed garbage conveying system, wearable vital signs monitoring equipment, mobile 5G+8K HD live broadcast, 360-degree immersive viewing, smart training, smart park, and so forth, showcasing the style of the high-tech here and there.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the globe, China is confident to hold a safe Olympic Games. China has secured a strategic victory in the fight against COVID-19 at home and put in place an efficient and effective epidemic prevention and control system. We are confident that we will overcome the challenges posed by Omicron.The International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee and the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have published two editions of the Beijing 2022 Playbooks. Following the requirements of the Playbooks, the Chinese side is optimizing the area-based double closed-loop management process tailored for different categories of participants and strictly implementing the epidemic control protocols. China will take science-based and targeted epidemic prevention and control measures, make utmost effort to prevent infection and ensure the health and safety of all personnel attending the Beijing 2022.
“Together for a shared future” embodies the international community's support and common expectations for the Beijing Winter Olympics.In just a few days, the Olympic flame will be dancing to the drumbeat of the Chinese Year of the Tiger. China is ready to work withthe International Olympic Committee and the international communityto practice the Olympic spirit of “together”. We will be a good host and make full efforts topresent a streamlined, safe and splendid Olympic Games to the world，making sureall participants feel spring-like warmth and providing more solidarity, confidence and strength to all against the backdrop of the pandemic. We hope that all Olympians will excel themselves in thecompetitionlike soaring dragons and leaping tigers in Beijing, and the international Olympic cause will move forward by leaps and bounds. I wish all the Olympic athletes, including Chinese and Estonian athletes, to achieve great success in the Beijing Winter Olympics!