It takes just one month in four days until the opening of the Beijing Olympics in winter.
In China, caution is increasing, such as the cancellation of New Year's Eve events as a countermeasure against the infection of the new coronavirus, and the focus is on whether the spread of infection can be suppressed toward the Games.
The Beijing Olympics will be the first winter Olympics in China and will be held from February 4th to 17th in the capital, Beijing, and in the neighboring Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province.
In Beijing, the rehearsal of the medal ceremony was released to the press on the 3rd at the award ceremony venue near the national stadium where the opening ceremony is held, commonly known as "Bird's Nest".
Among them, as a countermeasure against the infection of the new corona, staff members who played the role of medalists went up to the podium wearing masks and confirmed the procedure to hang the medal on their neck.
According to health officials, 161 new cases were confirmed in China on the 2nd, of which 90 were infected in the city in the inland area of Shaanxi Province, Xian, targeting all 13 million citizens. Measures to severely restrict going out have been ongoing for more than 10 days.
Under these circumstances, authorities are becoming more cautious about the spread of the infection, such as the sudden cancellation of New Year's Eve events in various parts of China.
At the Beijing Convention, the policy is to forgo the acceptance of spectators from abroad as a countermeasure against infection, and to allow only residents of mainland China, but the size of the spectators has not been clarified even now.
At competition venues, the so-called "bubble method" of infection control, which blocks external contact with the people involved in the competition, will begin in earnest in the future, but the focus is on controlling the spread of infection toward the competition.
Diplomacy over the Chinese Olympics
Chinese officials are also nervous about preventing the spread of "diplomatic boycotts" among countries that do not send government officials to the Beijing Games.
The Biden administration in the United States officially announced at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics last month because of human rights violations by the Chinese government, including the continuing "genocide" in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which is intended to destroy groups such as ethnic groups. It has been revealed that it will do a "diplomatic boycott" without dispatching a representative of.
After this US decision, Australia, Britain, Canada, and Japan have announced that they will not send government officials to the Beijing Olympics.
New Zealand says it will not send government officials because of the effects of the new coronavirus.
In each country, the team will be dispatched.
In addition, the EU = European Union has an opinion that "the EU should come up with a response policy" and is discussing it, but no conclusion has been reached yet.
On the other hand, some countries do not agree with the United States.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
In addition, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has indicated that he will not consider a "diplomatic boycott", saying that he has never been invited by any country, including the United States.