When China won its bid to host the 2022 Winter Games, the world was a very different place. The country had successfully hosted the 2008 Summer Games and had continued its fast-paced development in commanding an increasingly important role in the world.
Apparently one of the seductive aspects of Beijing's bid for the Winter Olympics was the promise to create a nation of winter sports enthusiasts - 300 million was the exact figure given. The government now claims to have surpassed that, declaring that Winter Olympics fervour has swept across the country.
But with the Games just a week away the backdrop against which they will take place is far from what President Xi had hoped.
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