--- title: China Faces a Host of Problems Before 2022 Olympics description: From growing debt to a new wave of COVID-19, China is facing a host of problems as it prepares to kick of the 2022 Beijing Olympics canonical: https://time.com/6141809/china-2022-olympics-covid-19-debt/ author: Ian Bremmer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-01-25T15:41:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:45:07.850Z article:section: Ideas og:title: China Faces a Host of Problems and the Olympics Haven't Even Started og:description: From growing debt to a new wave of COVID-19, China is facing a host of problems as it prepares to kick of the 2022 Beijing Olympics og:url: https://time.com/6141809/china-2022-olympics-covid-19-debt/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442d0d5fe2a05717/698a21b2929fad38dcbf8317/beijing-olympics-2022-xi-jinping-bremmer-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: beijing-olympics-2022-xi-jinping-bremmer og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: China Faces a Host of Problems and the Olympics Haven't Even Started twitter:description: From growing debt to a new wave of COVID-19, China is facing a host of problems as it prepares to kick of the 2022 Beijing Olympics twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442d0d5fe2a05717/698a21b2929fad38dcbf8317/beijing-olympics-2022-xi-jinping-bremmer-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # China Faces a Host of Problems and the Olympics Haven't Even Started > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: The Olympics Will be the Ultimate Test for China's Zero-COVID Policy [Watch (HLS stream): The Olympics Will be the Ultimate Test for China's Zero-COVID Policy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hGbfRCdH.m3u8) (2:25)  _Published 2022-01-25. Hosting the Olympic Games is a daunting challenge during any year. Add a global pandemic, and the logistics of welcoming the world’s athletes in while keeping the virus out become complicated fast. But China believes its aggressive stance against COVID-19 is up to the task._  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Jan 25, 2022 3:41 PM UTC  President Xi Jinping inspects the national speedskating oval in Beijing on Jan. 4 President Xi Jinping inspects the national speedskating oval in Beijing on Jan. 4 Xie Huanchi—Xinhua/Getty Images  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Jan 25, 2022 3:41 PM UTC In summer 2008, the Beijing Olympics marked a big moment in China’s progress toward global power. With that spotlight came controversy; activists used the event to highlight the government’s human—rights abuses, but the event’s triumphalist pageantry illustrated the story of China’s rise toward prosperity and prestige for a world audience. Since then, China’s ambitions have taken another leap forward. Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership over the past decade, China has gone from pushing for reform of the international system to helping guide that reform to making plans for leading it. In recent years, Xi has heralded a “new era” that will move China “closer to center stage” in global politics. He has presented China as “a new option for other countries,” an alternative to Western democracy, and he has outlined what he calls the “Chinese solution” for the world’s problems. Closer to home, China’s leaders mean for their country to tighten control of Hong Kong, to pressure Taiwan to stop resisting Beijing’s push for unification with the mainland, and to build military strength in the South China Sea. Yet the reality is that China’s rise was losing trajectory even before a more aggressive U.S. foreign and trade policy and the COVID-19 global pandemic. While Xi’s [“China Dream”](https://time.com/4077693/chinese-dream-xi-jinping/) of prosperity has become reality for hundreds of millions of people, extending these gains to a population with rising expectations for a bright future won’t be easy. China is still a middle-income country. To reach Western levels of prosperity, it needs 6% to 7% growth for another generation. That goal now looks nearly impossible to achieve, because the growth engines that have powered China forward in recent decades are running out of steam. First, a reshoring of manufacturing away from China and advances in robotics have cut into China’s lower-wage advantage. Second, its [demographics](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/chinas-birthrate-falls-to-61-year-low-despite-moves-to-stave-off-demographic-crisis#:~:text=China%2C%20like%20much%20of%20east,%25%20in%202020%20to%2018.9%25.) are discouraging. China announced that birth rates have fallen for the fifth consecutive year. In coming years, a shrinking workforce will weigh on growth, and that smaller number of workers will have to support a fast-growing population of elderly people. The state’s shift from a “one-child policy” to a “two-child policy” and now a “three-child policy” hasn’t helped. Xi has promised that China will achieve a “common prosperity” that reduces income inequality by redistributing wealth across regions, income groups and economic sectors. But for now, the country looks to be getting old before it can grow broadly rich. China also has a debt problem. In particular, it has relied heavily for economic growth on easy credit for property and other speculative investments. Too often the institutional borrowers who have accepted much of this money expect government help and protection if they struggle to repay. Xi knows China’s domestic tranquility, and its national security, depend on financial stability. To avoid a banking crisis and an economic crash, China’s government has tried to clean up the business of borrowing and lending. But the various fights in recent months over the fate of possibly “too-big-too-fail” companies, like the deeply indebted property developer [Evergrande](https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/investing/evergrande-urge-offshore-creditors-legal-action-intl-hnk/index.html), make reform much easier to promise than to deliver. **_Read More:_**[_The Beijing Olympics Will Be the Ultimate Test of China’s Zero COVID-19 Policy_](https://time.com/6140992/beijing-olympics-china-covid-19/) For the 2022 Winter Games, China’s leaders have a more immediate problem. Throughout the pandemic, the state has sharply limited the number of [COVID-19 infections](https://time.com/6104303/china-zero-covid/) within the country’s borders with a [“zero-COVID policy.”](https://time.com/6139772/china-zero-covid-policy/) It has used digital devices to track and trace infections, and its tight, highly centralized political control to enforce lockdowns of a large number of people. In 2020, this policy was among the world’s most effective, and helped China to be the only major economy to experience growth that year. Not so much now. It’s much harder to build a fence around the Omicron variant, which is far more infectious if less dangerous for those who’ve been fully vaccinated. China has yet to roll out its own versions of the mRNA vaccines that have proven so effective. As China prepares for its new moment in the Olympic spotlight, it faces the most [highly transmissible form](https://time.com/6138293/omicron-symptoms-covid-19/) of COVID-19 yet. Compared with America and Europe, it has a much smaller percentage of people protected by previous infections or access to the most effective vaccines. That’s why foreigners can’t attend the Games as spectators, and why domestic audiences will enter by invitation only. More than 20 million people across China are currently [locked down](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/world/asia/china-xian-lockdown-covid.html). All of this comes at a time of economic slowdown. 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