Olympic security: Beijing 2022 and the need for a more context-driven understanding of security at the Games

The extreme security practices at Beijing 2022 are as much the result of the Olympic security context as they are by-products of the authoritarian Chinese state.

Source: flickr

As the Olympic fortnight drew to a close in Beijing, one can be forgiven for feeling a sense of Olympic fatigue. After all, it was only last summer that the Olympic circus was in full swing for the delayed ‘Covid Games’ in Tokyo. Six months later, the show hit the road again, this time pulling up in Beijing for its Winter iteration. 

Such fatigue stems primarily from the omnipresent media coverage that surrounds any event, a commonplace feature of the modern Olympic format that reflects its development into a global spectacle, to borrow a phrase from Debord. Beijing 2022 has been no different in this regard, with the Games serving as a prominent topic for most news outlets over the last month. Headlines have included the usual discussions around athletic performance, as well as more sensationalist stories such as a doping violation, Covid cases, and one athlete’s freak injury. Beyond the competition field, Beijing 2022 has also been subject to discussions concerning how the event has been managed, with media discourse especially critical of the security practices at the Games, from its Covid protocols, the ‘closed-loop’ system, as well as the MY2022 app. 

Whilst these critiques have some substance, I find them somewhat misinformed in how they frame the Beijing 2022 security operation. In particular, I take issue with how they portray the Beijing operation as a significant deviation from previous Olympic security operations by characterising the extreme security practices at Beijing as by-products of Chinese authoritarianism, rather than framing such practices within the wider Olympic security context.

These generalisations are not surprising given the Western tendency to analyse the policies of the Chinese state through certain normative beliefs of how the latter behaves. Specifically, the West has characterised the Chinese state as a revanchist and unconstrained power whose very raison d’être threatens the foundations of the ‘liberal international order’ –  however dated this concept has become. As a result, belligerence is assumed in every action, and whilst some may view this as a rational approach, I fear that it may constrain analysis.  

This is not to say that the Chinese state is a benign actor. Indeed, when we look at the policies of the Chinese state within the last decade alone, we see a perturbing course. Domestically, Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) stands accused of sponsoring a genocide of the Uyghur Muslims, purging dissenting voices, and institutionalising a sophisticated social credit and digital authoritarian system to panoptically control its population. Internationally, the CCP has also pursued an irredentist foreign policy that has fostered regional and international instability, for instance in its policies toward Taiwan. 

These realities cannot be taken lightly, nor can they be defended. 

Yet they should not lead us to assume that every policy is the result of an inherent belligerence either. The security operation at Beijing 2022 offers a pertinent example of this, with this operation being influenced more by the security context surrounding the Olympics than by the authoritarian practices of the Chinese state. This is because the modern Olympic spectacle is uniquely vulnerable to certain threats and risks emanating from an evolving security environment that includes terrorist threats, trans-national viruses, and natural disasters. Tied to this are the precedents set by previous security operations, which, following events such as 9/11 and Covid, have resulted in a shifting approach that leans toward ‘more’ security. After all, security refers to “the low probability of damage to acquired values”, and when the main value of Olympic security - the event itself - is under threat, ‘more’ security seems logical. 

This has not always been the case. At Munich 1972, one can observe a different security rationality premised on ‘less’ security, with organisers favouring a minimal operation that tried to reflect the “peaceful and unconstrained” nature of a German society trying to rebuild its post-war image and identity. This approach, however, would ultimately lead to a catastrophic failure in security whereby the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) took advantage of the minimal security around the Olympic Village to enter the site and eventually kill eleven hostages from the Israeli Olympic team. 

The PLO attack at Munich 1972 therefore represents a watershed moment in Olympic security whereby proceeding operations have become rationalised through the ‘more’ security approach, yet this point seems lost in the discourse surrounding the Beijing 2022 operation. Beijing 2022 has been subject to labels such as the ‘Hazmat Games’ in reference to its Covid protocols, and the ‘security state’ due to the sophisticated surveillance system. Implicit within these discussions are the aforementioned normative beliefs that associate such security practices with Chinese authoritarianism. In turn, the importance of the Olympic security context is erroneously downplayed.

Lest we forget that Tokyo 2020 – the only other post-Covid Games so far – operated in a similar security environment, with similar operational precedents too. Faced by new Covid variants and increasing case numbers, the Tokyo organisers implemented strict protocols for the 2020 Games; yet they still faced criticism for such practices, with some even calling for measures to be more stringent – arguments that the Beijing organisers would have undoubtedly taken into consideration for their own operation. 

Furthermore, extreme surveillance practices are not peculiar to the Beijing operation either, as panoptic-style surveillance has been commonplace since Athens 2004, and was especially noticeable at London 2012, Sochi 2014, and Tokyo 2020. Arguably, such trends imply that surveillance has become the norm within Olympic security, and is a practice considered essential to a successful operation. 

Again, this is not to say that the security operation at Beijing 2022 represents the standard. When it comes to the security flaws of the MY2022 app and the unjust hustling away of a Dutch Journalist, the jury is still out. Cases like these also reflect how security can be deployed as a guise for more nefarious reasons, rather than genuine security concerns, and both examples should be taken into account when evaluating the Beijing 2022 security operation.

At the same time, any evaluation should also situate the Beijing 2022 operation within a wider security context surrounding the modern Olympic format which - ever since the PLO attack at Munich 1972 - has been premised on the rationality that ‘more’ security is better to guarantee the protection of the Games. When we do factor in these points, we can see how the Beijing 2022 security operation is as much the result of the context surrounding Olympic security as it is the by-product of the authoritarian Chinese state.

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