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Ian Explains: Why authoritarian rulers love the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee says global politics have no place at the Olympics and insists the Olympics promote democratic values through sports, so why does the IOC keep awarding the Games to authoritarian countries like Russia and China?
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the complicated relationship between global politics and the Olympic Games. The IOC has an uncomfortable history of cozying up to authoritarian rulers, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who use the Games as propaganda, who use the Games to project the image of their country they want the world to see. Calls are growing for more transparency in the IOC, which has faced accusations of corruption, bribery, and bid-rigging in recent years. The 2024 Olympics will be a test of the IOC’s ability to remain politically neutral while balancing the ideals of democracy with the geopolitical realities of a world that’s more fragmented than ever. Can they stick the landing?
Watch more on the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, in which Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins discusses security concerns and logistical challenges at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the complicated relationship between global politics and the events, and sportswashing.
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: Subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
A Russian serviceman takes part in combat patrol and anti-sabotage drills involving RS-24 Yars road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile systems.
Ukrainian diplomat: Invading would ruin Putin
An invasion of Ukraine could wipe out half of Russia’s invading forces and could even topple Vladimir Putin.
That’s what would happen if Russia invades Ukraine, according to Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN.
In an interview with GZERO, Ukraine’s former deputy minister of foreign affairs called the Russian military buildup an “unnatural, unjustifiable concentration of troops.” Kyiv estimates there are between 120,000 and 130,000 Russian troops deployed along its border, but Kyslytsya said Moscow will need more than that to invade.
“It’s not [a] sustainable occupation, because the casualties will be so high that you can easily lose half of your personnel in a week,” said Kyslytsya.
Over the weekend, the US released its own assessment, estimating that Putin is 70% ready to invade, but that up to 85,000 — 50,000 civilians, 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and 10,000 Russian military personnel — could be killed in case of war.
An invasion could politically backfire at the Kremlin, too. The ambassador said that while Putin is betting on stoking Russian nationalism, an invasion could put his leadership at risk.
“I think it is going to be suicidal for Putin himself, and until he understands that, the calamity and the scale of life losses … can easily topple him.”
With regard to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Putin ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, the Ukrainian diplomat was quick to recall some Sino-Russian Olympic trivia.
“They remember what the Russians did” in 2008, he said, referring to when Russia invaded Georgia on the day the Beijing Summer Olympics got underway. Any similar moves this year, he says, “would really piss off the Chinese.”
Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer thinks a full invasion is “very unlikely” but believes any Russian action is likely to await the close of the Winter Games.
Ukraine is betting on China watching out for itself. Kyslytsya pointed out that China has a larger shared border with Russia than Europe. “It is not in the Chinese interest to have a war where a country next to the border is waging the war,” even if both Moscow and Beijing voted together against proceeding in last week’s fiery UN Security Council meeting.- Russia-Ukraine crisis: Major escalation this week - GZERO Media ›
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Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting on the sidelines of the 11th BRICS Summit, in Brasilia, Brazil November 13, 2019.
Putin meets Xi, US takes out ISIS leader, Costa Rica votes
Putin-Xi Olympic meeting. “It's probably the most important geopolitical summit we've had in years,” says Ian Bremmer. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on Friday in Beijing, where Putin will also attend the Winter Olympics inauguration. The two have a lot to discuss in their first in-person meeting in two years, including tensions over Ukraine, trade, and lunar exploration. Putin will likely assure Xi that Russian oil and gas will continue flowing to China. Xi, meanwhile, is expected to support Russia’s demand that NATO halt its eastward expansion. China’s leader sees the Ukraine crisis as a welcome distraction from COVID and Xinjiang. On the other hand, Xi doesn’t want a war that will hurt the economy, so he would prefer that Putin find a diplomatic resolution.
US targets ISIS leader. President Biden announced Thursday that the US conducted a pre-dawn operation in northern Syria that took out ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. Al-Qurayshi, who replaced Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as ISIS leader in 2019, reportedly detonated a suicide vest as the Americans moved in, killing himself and family members. The operation was a rare tactical move by the Biden administration, which has veered away from getting embroiled further in Middle East conflicts. The timing is significant as it comes after an ISIS prison raid and bid to free some 12,000 ISIS members and their families. This stoked fears that the Islamic State, defeated in 2019, might be making a comeback. But some analysts believe that while ISIS sleeper cells have launched many attacks in recent years and remain active in some areas, the group’s reach and clout are still limited.
Costa Rica’s wide-open election. Voters in the 5-million strong Central American country head to the polls Sunday for a presidential election featuring more than two dozen candidates. The main concerns for Ticos, as Costa Ricans are known, are unemployment — which is topping 14% — and rampant corruption. Leading the pack with 17% support in the polls is former President José Maria Figueres, a centrist who ran the country in the 1990s. Just behind him are conservative former VP Lineth Saborío and Fabricio Alvarado, a populist evangelical preacher. But more than a third of voters are still undecided and no candidate even comes close to getting the 40% needed to avoid a runoff, so a second round in April is all but assured. A question looms over the fate of Costa Rica’s $1.8 billion IMF deal, which was negotiated by the current administration. Our friends at Eurasia Group say frontrunner Figueres would leave the pact alone, while Saborío and Alvarado, who oppose the IMF’s demand to raise taxes, would try to revise it.Why Xi Jinping might pull off the Winter Olympics
The Beijing Winter Olympics kick off this week against the backdrop of an ongoing pandemic, volatile geopolitics, and diplomatic boycotts over China’s human rights record. But Beijing is still going for gold.
Some anticipate that these dynamics will render the Games — a platform for flexing global soft power — a failure. But there are compelling reasons to believe China’s President Xi Jinping could pull off the massive sporting event successfully, thereby boosting Beijing’s diplomatic bonafides and proving naysayers wrong.
Boycotts aren’t working. Half a dozen countries recently joined the Biden administration in a diplomatic boycott of the Games over China’s abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Washington was probably hoping for a more robust domino effect. But the combined commitments from multinational corporations to sponsor the Games — the top 13 multinationals have contracts with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) worth more than $1 billion – have undermined Biden’s attempt to alienate Beijing. What’s more, the Washington-led boycott may be backfiring. It’s giving China a means for stoking nationalist sentiment and reinforcing the ruling Communist Party’s narrative that the US is trying to steal China’s thunder.
Is there a silver lining to zero-COVID policy? China’s zero-COVID policy puts it and the world at risk of economic and political instability. That’s why GZERO’s parent company Eurasia Group deemed it the biggest geopolitical risk for 2022. Meanwhile, some health experts warn that despite very strict quarantine and testing schemes in Beijing, an omicron breakout is likely given that teams from some 90 countries are flying in for the. (At least 119 athletes and staff have already tested positive.) Undeniably, this would strike a big blow to Xi’s credibility at home after he refused to budge on this contentious containment strategy.
But "zero COVID" might also work in Beijing’s favor by enabling the CCP to better control the flow of information and overall optics. China’s government is already busy censoring the social media accounts of prominent Chinese activists. It’s warned athletes that protests will lead to prosecution, and with strict COVID restrictions in place, Beijing can more easily monitor its foreign guests.
The IOC needs China. IOC President Thomas Bach recently said that the Swiss-based sports organization should not be expected to solve complex geopolitical issues for which “not a UN Security Council, no G7, no G20, has a solution.” Also, maintaining warm ties with Beijing may be crucial to the longevity of the games, particularly now when many countries are struggling to convince citizens that hosting the Olympics is worthwhile, despite the cost. China’s authoritarian government, on the other hand, doesn’t need to hold referendums to gauge popular support.
And it’s not just the Olympics. The power of China's chokehold over sporting revenues has played out in other contexts, too. In 2019, Beijing took NBA games off the air for an entire year after the general manager of one team tweeted support for pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. When all was done and dusted, one tweet cost the NBA $200 million in lost revenue.
Team China to place well at the podium. Faced with a diplomatic boycott over its human rights record and omicron, China has nonetheless scored huge sponsorships. Just days out from the inauguration ceremony, Beijing is likely very happy with how things are panning out.
Beijing's struggle to keep the Olympics COVID free
COVID-19 positive cases leading up to the Beijing Olympics, a proposed defense pact between Ukraine, Poland, and the UK, and the Joe Rogan/Spotify scandal -- Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
First, how is COVID-19 affecting Beijing Olympics prep in China?
Well, we've got already well over a hundred members of Olympic athletes and staff that have tested positive twice, which means they ain't playing. They're not involved. They're going to go home. And these numbers are going to go way up. I do think that this idea of a complete closed loop system, the Chinese have more ability to implement and execute on that than pretty much any country in the world. So I doubt you're going to see spread from the Olympics into the broader population, but you're going to see a lot of people with COVID coming in because omicron is so incredibly spreadable. And that's going to be yet one more thing that dings a very weird Beijing Olympics with diplomatic boycotts and populations unhappy about where we are and not having fans and all the political challenges and censorship and surveillance of phones and data going to the government. And it's just so politicized that you hate to see that with global athletes, and global athletics, but that's where we are. I do say that I'm glad that the athletes are still competing. It's one of the few things that can bring us all together on this planet.
What's the update with the Russia-Ukraine crisis?
Well, the interesting thing that came out is this early stage announcement that there's a defense pact going to come between Poland, the UK and Ukraine. I understand Poland, because Poland of course sees themself as frontline, most vulnerable to the Russians, and if the Ukrainians go, what happens to us? But in the case of the UK, either there's not much to this and we'll see that it's not really a defense pact, or there is something to it, and it's a complete desperation move by Boris Johnson, who is in his last sort of gasp as prime minister, having screwed up just about everything over the last few months, get caught in lies and getting whacked by his own party members. Former PM Theresa May just took a chunk out of his hide yesterday and was applauded roundly. We'll see. If they actually are saying that they would come to Ukraine's defense if there were any Russian incursion, there's no way that was brought up with the Americans in advance. The US would not have approved that. And I think the UK's going to come in for great criticism. But watch very carefully what comes out here, okay.
Finally, Joe Rogan and Spotify, who's right, who's wrong?
It's a tough situation in the sense that he's a pretty controversial character and he's had some people online that spout lots of information that's not really good. But he does try to bring on people from all different political walks of life, some of whom I like, some of whom I think are kind of fringe and wacko. I do think you have more responsibility about the fringe people when you have that kind of an audience, because it does actually have a real impact. But I also take Joe Rogan on board when he says that there were a lot of things that used to be described as disinformation and you could be de platformed for it, and that's no longer the case. In the case of wearing masks, I mean, that's because we needed those masks for frontline workers. I understand why it was messaged the way it was at the time was for the best in terms of public safety. When it comes to denials and literally calling out as fake news the idea that COVID came from a lab in Wuhan, not intentionally, but escaped from it, I mean that honestly was misinformation and it was covering up from scientists and doctors that have done their field a disservice and have undermined themselves. And I do worry about that and I'm glad that Rogan mentioned it. So look, I don't think a lot of people are going to change their mind on Rogan on the base of this, but I will say that he's not going anywhere. And if you're his fan, you're probably still his fan and he's going to keep on keeping on for Spotify.
What We’re Watching: COVID Olympics, US-China business dilemma, China and the US midterms
COVID at the Games. The Beijing Winter Olympics, which begin on Friday, will be the most serious test to date of China's zero-COVID policy. President Xi Jinping wants to make a big international splash with the Games, as his predecessor did with the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008. That'll be tough with stadiums only half-full with domestic spectators pre-screened by the Communist Party, and no foreign fans allowed to attend at all. To avoid an outbreak at the Olympic Village, China initially imposed strict testing and quarantine policies for everyone attending the Games. But it’s possible that the CCP is having at least some doubts about this policy's ability to contain the omicron variant: Only days out from the inauguration ceremony, authorities have relaxed testing and isolation guidelines, signaling a slight pivot in China's pandemic management strategy. Does this mean the Olympics will be the beginning of the end of zero COVID? China's economy — and the world's — would surely benefit from a transition to living with the virus. Beijing says it is developing its own mRNA vaccines to achieve this, but that could still be many months away.
Xinjiang business culture wars. The Beijing Winter Olympics will also pose a big test for multinational corporations that will try to attract business in China despite the CCP’s ongoing human rights violations. US firms will worry about American consumer boycotts if they source products from Xinjiang, where some Chinese manufacturers rely on Uyghur forced labor. (Elon Musk recently came under fire for opening a Tesla showroom in the region.) But if US corporations take a firm stand on Xinjiang and other politically-sensitive issues in China, they risk a similar backlash from Chinese consumers. Last year, a vocal online movement in China called for the boycott of Nike after the multinational corporation criticized abuses in Xinjiang. Indeed, the CCP is more game to stoke nationalist fervor at the expense of business opportunities than the US government, which is reluctant to support consumer-led boycotts that hurt US businesses. Now, American corporations will face a very tough choice between drawing the potential ire of the US public or nationalist Chinese consumers.
China enters US midterms campaign. Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress don’t agree on much these days, but they do find much common ground on China — specifically, the need to counter Beijing’s growing economic and diplomatic clout. This “tough-on-China'' competition will surely intensify in the lead-up to the November midterm elections. Last summer, the Senate passed a bill to augment the US’ tech capabilities and “global competitiveness” – for instance by producing more US-made semiconductors instead of relying on Chinese chips. Tellingly, the legislation explicitly refers to China as the "greatest geopolitical and geoeconomic threat" to US foreign policy. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, passed two separate research and development bills, with some Democrats saying the Senate bill was too focused on countering China. In the months ahead, expect Republicans to jump at the opportunity to cast the Democratic party — and President Biden — as weak on China. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, who is up for re-election, has previously sent out campaign emails with the subject line "Dems <3 China.” This could prove to be a decisive electoral strategy considering that most Americans have a negative view of China, and support a more assertive stance towards its government.
China vs COVID in 2022
Omicron has arrived. It's more contagious, but less severe. Some parts of the world are even looking forward to the pandemic becoming endemic.
Not China. Xi Jinping's zero-COVID strategy has worked wonders until now, but it's unlikely to survive omicron, explains Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Why? China's vaccines are not as effective against the new COVID variant as mRNA jabs, and the Chinese population has no protection from previous infection.
Without a homegrown mRNA vaccine, China is vulnerable to local omicron outbreaks, which will lead to severe lockdowns and, in turn, greater economic disruption.
That's the last thing Xi wants less than a month out from the Winter Olympics, and later this year, when he hopes to get an unprecedented third term in office as China's leader.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Omicron and the undoing of China’s COVID strategy
Omicron & the undoing of China's COVID strategy
Omicron is here. The bad news is that it's more contagious. The good news is that mRNA vaccines work against death and hospitalization. COVID may soon become endemic in some parts of the world.
Not in China, where Xi Jinping's zero-COVID approach faces its toughest test to date with omicron. Why? Because China lacks mRNA jabs, and so few Chinese people have gotten COVID that overall protection is very low.
Get ready for a wave of lockdowns that'll severely disrupt the world's second-largest economy — just a month out from the Beijing Winter Olympics.
That could spell disaster for Beijing, Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells Ian Bremmer on this week's episode of GZERO World.
Still, he says zero COVID remains popular with most Chinese people.
If things get really bad, though, Huang believes China will pivot to living with the virus, especially as the cost of keeping zero COVID in the age of omicron becomes too high. He thinks that's the right move for Xi.
Indeed, Huang expects China to start reversing course soon after the Games, and when the pandemic becomes endemic in other parts of the world. Beijing will throw in the towel on zero tolerance in 1-2 years, max.
Also, a look at vaccine incentives around the world. Do prizes like cows and brothel visits actually convince holdouts to get the jab?
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