The Winter Olympics begin today in Beijing, China. Beijing is the first city in history to host the summer and winter games. There is no doubt the opening ceremony will try to showcase the prosperity, culture and achievements of Communist China.

Great controversy surrounded participation in these Olympics due to China’s long history of human rights abuses, particularly the genocide against the Uyghur Muslims. The strongest condemnation the Western world could muster was a diplomatic boycott of the games: The United States, for example, did not send the traditional roster of high-profile dignitaries, generally led by the sitting vice president or the first lady. But America’s athletes are still taking part. By participating, the world opens the door to Chinese propaganda and information collection.

Behind the pomp and ceremony of the Olympics are brutal government crackdowns, espionage and draconian surveillance. The Beijing Winter Olympics are showcasing the authoritarian power of the Communist Chinese regime.

On January 26, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced it would be starting a monthlong “purification” of the Internet in conjunction with the Olympics. “According to the cyberspace agency’s plan, the home pages of key media sites, trending topic search lists, push pop-up windows, and important news content pages must be carefully managed to present ‘positive information,’” reported cnn Business. “It added that obscene, vulgar, bloody, violent and other illegal or bad information should be eradicated to create a ‘positive online atmosphere.’”

The Chinese Communist Party (ccp) is very concerned about promoting a positive national image during the Olympics, as Nicholas Eftimiades explained at the Diplomat. “Saving face is a particular paranoia for the ccp,” he wrote, “it is what maintains China’s dictatorship. Protecting the ccp’s image has driven Chinese leaders to create the world’s most advanced and pervasive censorship capability, effectively becoming the first digital authoritarian nation.”

The Chinese Communist Party has also cracked down on dissenters by silencing their social media accounts or having them disappear. “Eight individuals told [Agence France-Presse] that their WeChat accounts had been restricted in some form since early December, with some unable to use their accounts entirely and forced to re-register,” stated France24. “The restrictions came as authorities detained two prominent human rights activists, lawyer Xie Feng and writer Yang Maodong, while a third rights lawyer missing since early December is believed by relatives to be in secret detention.”

Such crackdowns on dissidents are nothing new and occur routinely before important national events or anniversaries. As time goes by, there are less and less dissenters to remove because they are constantly disappearing.

The athletes participating in this year’s Olympics will face an unprecedented amount of surveillance and data harvesting. The Diplomat reported that the information provided on the athletes’ visas will be used to classify them into two groups: friends of China and those against China. Based on their category, they will be exploited either to promote propaganda or to limit opportunities to disparage the regime.

All cell phone signals will be tracked and recorded. “Cell phone towers will record everything from the metadata to actual content of messages,” Eftimiades wrote. “The information gathered from the interceptions will be relayed to China’s Ministry of Public Security.” This is in addition to the smartphone app MY2022, which China is requiring all athletes to download. The app was deliberately designed with security flaws so it can be used to spy on athletes. “The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab reported the app as having significant encryption and security flaws and a censorship list (albeit currently inactive) of 2,442 ‘illegal words’,” continued Eftimiades. Researcher Johnathan Scott reverse-engineered the app and found it actively listens to the environment around it and sends the audio back to Chinese servers.

“Cell phone tracking, onsite video surveillance systems, and facial recognition technology will be used to track the movement of each athlete,” wrote Eftimiades. “China has the most sophisticated facial recognition and associated artificial intelligence in the world, thanks in part to collaborations with U.S. universities and businesses.” The athletes are being used as pawns to advance the goals of Chinese espionage.

Olympic athletes will have access to Internet sites behind the “great firewall of China,” such as social media sites and YouTube, but all laptop communications and activity will be monitored. The athletes have been warned to bring new devices and to use new passwords and e-mails so the Chinese government cannot access their private information. Athletes are also being warned not to make any political statements or gestures at the podium. Anything the Chinese government deems controversial will receive a media blackout.

The athletes will be completely separated from the Chinese people. Tickets are not being sold to the public due to covid-19 concerns. The government is pursuing a zero-covid policy and has locked down 1.2 million people around Beijing in an attempt to control any omicron outbreak. With no public audience, it will just be Olympic officials and participants. All media coverage will go through the ccp.

The Beijing Winter Games will be the most complicated, monitored and surveilled games in history. Why is the most prestigious sports event in the world giving a Communist government guilty of genocide, oppression, and human-rights abuses a stage to promote its propaganda? Why is the world allowing thousands of athletes, coaches and supporters to be monitored and spied upon by an enemy of the Western world?

There is more call for action in the United States to censor Joe Rogan than there is to punish China, as Elle Reynolds at the Federalist pointed out. “[I]nstead of pushing back against a genocidal Communist dictatorship (and an International Olympic Committee that abets it, along with many U.S. corporations), the American thought police are too busy shutting down a liberal podcaster for daring to ask a guest on his show for interesting opinions,” wrote Reynolds.

As tensions mount between Russia and the West over Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing for the February 4 opening ceremony. The Russia-China partnership is increasingly having its way in the world. The weak opposition by the U.S. and the Western world against China’s draconian measures is a sign of who holds the power. Instead of uniting the world through sports, the Olympics are revealing a fractured, divided world.

These Olympic games are symbolic of a change in the order of world power, which the Bible prophesied would happen in this end time. “Christ called this period of tribulation, just before His return, ‘the times of the Gentiles,’” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in “After the English-Speaking Peoples Fall—What Next?” “The dramatic fall of the English-speaking nations the world is now witnessing is a horrendous warning. The Israelite nations are falling, and Gentile nations are taking charge of the world right now. This shows that we are now in the outer edges of the catastrophic storm that Christ forewarned of!”

During this new era, “the times of the Gentiles,” the world is dominated by tyrannical empires that act like beasts. “The pitiless, Communist regime of China is on the march,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “It is asserting power in the South China Sea and across the globe with its new ‘silk road.’ It is unilaterally pushing dubious territorial claims against Japan, the Philippines and other nations. It has swallowed up Hong Kong. It has threatened to invade Taiwan. It supports North Korea. This fearsome regime brutally dominates its own people and wants to subdue many more!” The authoritarianism being displayed at the Beijing Winter Games is only a small taste of what is coming. The worst times in human history will take place during the times of the Gentiles.

Despite this gloomy forecast, God’s ultimate plan is to usher in a future era of peace, prosperity and world unity. To learn more, please read “After the English-Speaking Peoples Fall—What Next?”