The Winter Olympics have officially opened in Beijing amid efforts by China to shift attention away from concerns about the spread of COVID-19 and its human rights record.
Diplomats from the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, Australia, and other countries boycotted the opening over China's human rights record, particularly the treatment of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang Province.
Chinese President Xi Jinping pronounced the Winter Games officially open at the lattice-clad arena, known as the Bird's Nest, that took center stage at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
At the opening ceremony, Xi hosted some 20 world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country denounced the boycott and attempts to "politicize sport."
Putin, who is seeking to bolster ties with China amid rising tensions with the West over Russia’s military buildup near its border with Ukraine, hailed Russia's "model" relations with Beijing in a phone call with Xi in December, calling his Chinese counterpart a "dear friend."
Xi and Putin met ahead of the ceremony and released a joint statement voicing China and Russia's opposition to NATO's further expansion while also criticizing Washington's "negative impact on peace and stability" in the Asia-Pacific region.
Other leaders attending the opening ceremonies were Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were among leaders of global institutions attending the ceremony.
Tickets were not sold to the public because of the pandemic.
Acclaimed Chinese film director Zhang Yimou presented a "totally innovative" show but conceded that the pandemic and freezing weather limited its scale compared to his opening ceremony production for the 2008 Summer Olympics in which 15,000 performers took part.
Beijing becomes the first city to host a Summer and a Winter Olympics. But the selection of Beijing for the Winter Games has come under criticism because of the lack of natural snow. Outdoor events will be held almost exclusively on artificially made snow.
Beijing also has had to contend with the coronavirus. The country where the virus emerged in late 2019 has pursued a zero-COVID-19 policy nationwide and has attempted to adopt the same approach to the Olympics.
The nearly 3,000 athletes and tens of thousands of support staff, volunteers, and media representatives must exist inside a vast "closed loop bubble" that separates all event personnel and athletes from the public. Everyone inside the "bubble" must undergo daily tests and wear a mask.
Despite the precautions there already have been nearly 290 COVID-19 cases in the bubble, including an unknown number of athletes.
Despite the controversies International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach sent a positive message on the eve of the opening ceremony.
"China is now a winter sport nation," he said. “We're writing a new chapter of sports history together."
