David Remnick: The very real complications facing the Winter Olympics in Beijing go well beyond COVID. The games have put a gigantic spotlight on China's human rights abuses, most critically, the genocide taking place against the Uyghurs. The US government and some other nations are boycotting the games in a limited way, leaving diplomats and officials at home, though their athletes are competing. I'm joined now by Louisa Thomas, a staff writer who covers sports from football to gymnastics, to chess, and Peter Hessler, who's been our China correspondent for many years. Now, Peter, I want to start off with you. Normally, you would be in Beijing for these Olympics but you're not. How come?

Peter Hessler: Well, I taught in China for two years, 2019 until last July, and then my teaching contract was not renewed. No official explanation was given for that, but it seems obvious that it was for political reasons. This has been a period when we've had the explosion of many American journalists. There's very few foreign reporters living in China right now. There's very few foreigners in general. There's probably never been a period that has had so few foreign correspondents, foreign observers on the ground in China.

Remnick: Certainly, it's not the first time that we've seen an authoritarian government in China or many other governments and foreign correspondents are allowed to stay and certainly to cover something a spectacle like an Olympic Games. Why would they clear out Beijing much less where you were living in Chengdu?

Peter: There's a number of reasons, but really what kicked it off in a lot of ways was the Trump administration. The Trump administration expelled Chinese journalists in early 2020 and China immediately countered by expelling most of the American journalists. Part of it was a tit for tat and then the other element that has really played into this, of course, is the pandemic. They're following a zero-tolerance strategy toward COVID, which has been broadly supported by the people and probably has saved a couple of million lives in China. That's also part of the dynamic.

Remnick: Peter, you covered the 2008 Games in Beijing. How do you expect China's self-presentation to differ in 2008 and now?

Peter: It's a totally different moment. 2008, they won that bid in 2001. I was there for that as well. At that point, China wanted to prove to the world that it was no longer a poor country, that it had arrived. 2008 was this moment where they were telling the world, "We're a world power, but also a prosperous country with active and engaged citizens." I think this year is completely different.

In that year, there was a sense that China needed the Olympics. "We need this to show the world something." I think that this year, really the International Olympic Committee needed China because when the bids for the Olympic Games were made in 2013 and the decision was made in 2015, everybody pulled out, all the European countries pulled out and Oslo was the favorite. They decided that they didn't have the support to do it and it ended up just being Kazakhstan, the city of Almaty, and China. The IOC decided on China basically because they knew they could pull it off. Focus now is going to be much more domestic. They're going to be playing this to their own citizens, I think, rather than the outside world,

Remnick: Louisa, over time, Olympic Games leave behind a political historical resonance, whether it was in Berlin in the '30s, Mexico City in the late '60s, certainly the games in Beijing and Moscow in the '80s. What do you think would be a success for Beijing this time around and what would be the opposite? What would be a failure in their eyes?

Louisa Thomas: I think Peter's refer to these games in some ways as a major domestic event. We're used to the Olympics as being as huge in international, but from an American's perspective, largely American event in some ways, in which the world comes together. Obviously, Americans are glued to American athletes and American success, and the NBC broadcast often revolves around that.

I think China will be happy to tell the story of how they pulled it off when no one else could as Peter indicated. I think that outside of China, it's going to be a smaller games than we're used to in some ways. The Winter Olympics is usually smaller than the Summer Olympics, we're coming right on the heels of the Tokyo Olympics which were already the least-watched games in history. Ratings were down 42% on NBC over Rio, four years before.

There aren't a lot of huge names. 2008 had Michael Phelps, had Usain Bolt, now we have Mikaela Shiffrin, but the major figure skaters are these young Russians that not a lot of Americans have heard of and there aren't the same kind of names in bright lights the NBC is promoting in quite the same way. I think in some ways, this is a games that is perhaps more than any others, like flying under the radar for American audiences. It will be a success, I think if people know about it in some ways because I even have a lot of friends who actually have no idea that there's about to be an Olympics which is extraordinary.

Remnick: Peter, what are the COVID restrictions? What are the COVID precautions like in Beijing as you understand them?

Peter: If you go to China now, which is hard to do, you have a long quarantine, usually three weeks or more. They're not doing that for the commentators, for the athletes, but as part of that, they will have no contact with Beijing citizens. Everybody going to the Olympics, all the people covering and the athletes are in a bubble. 2008, my favorite moment of those games was when I was at a wrestling match and was just walking through the stands.

I actually didn't go as a journalist, I just bought tickets and went to the events. I was walking through the stands and I overheard some people talking and they said, "Oh, the father of that guy who's wrestling, he's sitting up there." I went up there and sure enough, there was this old guy who was straight out of the countryside, watching his kid wrestle in the Olympics.

I watched him through that entire day. You had this contact, that's not going to be there at this time. The commentators are not going to be on the street in Beijing talking to people. They're not going to be in the stands talking to people. It's unclear if they're even going to be fans. Earlier, they said they were going to have fans and they were going to be allowed to clap but they couldn't shout. They were already saying that they're going to reduce the spectators and they may decide to have none at all like Tokyo.

Remnick: It's amazing what gets leached out of a sporting event when there are no fans, whether it was the NBA Playoffs last year or the Tokyo Games, just the absence of that energy is just so striking, isn't it Louisa?

Louisa: Absolutely. I think it's particularly true for the Olympics because part of the Olympics isn't just to figure out who is the best bobsledder in the world, it's to create these connections between these sudden heroes in our lives. Part of what the Olympics' magic is, is that connection they build out of almost nothing with the crowd. It's so spontaneous and it's so pure in some way and for that to be gone, we know it's a little sad.

Remnick: These athletes who have been training since they were children year after year, after year, day after day in a swimming pool hours and hours, and then the zenith of their career, which is just going to take a minute or two or maybe 15 minutes, if it's a long race, it's played out in absolute quiet. It was so strange to see that in Tokyo.

Louisa: Simone Biles was obviously one of the big stories of Tokyo. Her parents had come to every single one of her meets in her career, in her life. She always look up at them and know they were there and suddenly she looks up, they're not there. Obviously, that happens in people's lives, but it happened for this particular reason that and that's true of every single athlete. Part of it is the pride of representing their country and the pride they feel when they see their families and their friends and that's not there. They really have to figure out how to do it for themselves.

Remnick: Recently, the Biden administration as well as Canada, Australia and I think the UK, all announced that they would have a so-called diplomatic boycott of the Olympics, which meant that their diplomats and government officials would not come to Beijing and sit in the stands.

Jen Psaki: The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses. The athletes on team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.

Interviewer: Have they indicated to the administration--

Remnick: Do the Chinese care at all Peter?

Peter: Yes. This, I think, bothers them and they will retaliate. In Los Angeles 2028, something will happen, I guarantee you. Look at the countries that didn't participate in this, France. France is 2024. They said that "We're going." There's a reason for that. The Chinese will retaliate. When the Nobel Prize was given, Norway got hit. When Australia called for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, Australian beef gets hit. There will be retaliation for this, definitely. The Chinese care.

The real question I think is, what happens if athletes make statements, which I think is bound to happen. When an athlete says something about the internment camps in Xinjiang and the oppression of Muslim people in China, what is the Chinese response going to be because the IOC has really just left them out there? IOC has said nothing about the political events. They've basically just washed their hands of it and really, it's up to the athlete, and there's not going to be any local dissidents. How does the Chinese government respond to that? That's really a big question and a lot of people that I've talked to are very concerned about this.

Remnick: Now, given what you're saying, Peter, it seems the responsibility on NBC, the network carrying the Olympics, it's even more intense than ever. Louisa, how does NBC go about playing this? On the one hand, they have a news division and on the other hand, NBC, as it were, is in business with China, and so is the IOC. How do they handle this and how have they handled it in the past?

Louisa: It's not as it were, they are in business with the IOC. They are actually partners with the IOC. I imagine that there will be some pretty strong division between the news division and the broadcast. You might hear some reference during the opening ceremonies to the diplomatic boycott, but I doubt it. The question will be if athletes are asked at any point about interments or any of the other questions that could be asked, and if they answer in a certain way, how will NBC report that? If at all, will we see it, will we know it? That remains to be seen. The IOC was asked about this, actually, they were saying, what if an athlete protests and they said, "Well, that's a hypothetical." That was the word they use.

Remnick: I find it strange that the United States in the '80s refused to come to Moscow and the pretext and the reason for that policy was Afghanistan. At this moment, the Chinese government is doing what it's doing with the Uyghurs, which is an abomination, and yet our protest is much milder. What is the rationale for that?

Louisa: The Biden ministration has said that they don't want to take away the athletes' chance too. You mentioned before, these athletes have trained their whole lives. I think a lot of the athletes who missed out in 1980 were devastated. They'd been looking forward to this and there is a sense that you don't want to punish them for something that China is doing, and for some fight that China and the United States are having, or the UK or any other country, and so they've taken this kind of much milder route.

I think that there is less of a coherent focus on international affairs than there once was, I think that's safe to say. The Cold War was something that Americans broadly understood as being fully invested in whereas now, we're a much more fractured society in a lot of ways and I think that there is not the same sense of social cohesion. Although obviously, we were fractured in all sorts of other ways back then, too. I don't want to make too strong a statement. I'm speculating a little bit here but I do think that to a lot of people, what's happening in China feels far away, whereas what was happening with the Soviet Union may be felt more pressing to your right, kind of regular Americans?

Peter: Well, I think it's also just the politics change, and the tools change. I think the boycott has become less palatable. This is hostile, but remember the Chinese, they competed in 1952. They didn't compete again until 1984 because the IOC was recognized, and athletes from Taiwan. The Chinese had that long period, 30 years, where they were not part of the Olympic movement. The Taiwanese athletes still go, they don't compete under the Taiwanese flag, but it's the Chinese decided that they wanted to compete. I think that the idea of a full boycott and athletic boycott, is not nearly as likely now and I think that after 1980, there was a general sense that the athletes had paid a high price for missing those games. I think people want to find other tools if they want to speak out about what's going on in Xinjiang.

Remnick: On the hopes of ending on a high note and maybe a less political note, what athletic performance are you looking forward to in these games, Louisa?

Louisa: I'm one of those people who actually like watching people move around on little sticks, so I am really looking forward to the cross-country. I think Jessie Diggins is going to be on my TV a lot.

Remnick: You are killing me, you know the names of cross-country skiers.

Louisa: She's amazing.

Remnick: Okay. I'm with you, I'll be watching.

Louisa: I spent just countless hours of my childhood not only watching the Olympics but recording them on VHS, which kids these days will not have heard of, and then rewatching the Olympics. I actually did watch a lot of luge and bobsled.

Remnick: Peter, what athletic performance are you looking forward to?

Peter: I like to skiing and my daughters enjoy it because we live in Colorado and they ski. We're watch skiing and snowboarding. They were very excited by Chloe Kim last time and I suspect we'll be watching her again.

Remnick: Peter Hessler, Louisa Thomas, thanks so much.

Louisa: Thank you.

Peter: Thank you.

Remnick: Peter Hessler has lived in and reported from China for many years and Louisa Thomas covers sports for us. You can find all their work at newyorker.com.

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