By Doug Kelly and Asheesh Agarwal

Next week’s official start of the Winter Olympics will feature nearly 3,000 athletes from 91 counties, each competing to determine the world’s best in their respective sports. No doubt the games will produce many glorious champions and memorable moments.

But in many ways, this Olympics is about much more than athleticism and teamwork – it is also a side-by-side comparison of societal values and how to govern. Led by the United States, the Western democracies stand for pluralism, free speech, and economic liberty. The host nation, China, embodies another system, one that rests on authoritarianism, censorship and suppression, and an economy that operates only within tight boundaries established by the Chinese Communist Party.

In recent months, sports have cast a spotlight on China’s repressive regime. Last November, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai accused a senior Party official of sexually assaulting her. She promptly “disappeared” and, upon her later reappearance, denied ever making the claims in the first place. Many people strongly suspect that the Party had coerced her into retracting her claims, and in a show of tremendous courage, the Women’s Tennis Association suspended all events in China pending a full investigation.

Similarly, the Party may well have silenced former NBA legend Yao Ming. Yao, a superstar center with the Houston Rockets and, with his warm personality, a global marketing magnet, now leads the state-affiliated Chinese Basketball Association. But Yao’s handling of recent controversy strongly suggests that the state controls even its most prominent citizens. A current NBA player, Enes Kanter Freedom, had criticized the Party’s treatment of Uyghurs, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. As Freedom put it, “China’s Communist Party does not represent the Olympic core of excellence, of friendship, of respect … They are a brutal dictatorship. They threaten freedoms and they do not respect human rights.”

Yao invited Freedom to visit China in the hopes that Freedom would “gain a more comprehensive understanding of us.” Freedom accepted, but on condition that he be allowed to visit “the real China,” including Chinese labor camps. Yao then rescinded the invitation and blocked Freedom from his social media.

These incidents are part of a pattern of speech suppression:

  • A Chinese official recently threatened “punishment” of Olympic athletes from any country who exercise freedom of expression. In response, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China asked the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to share their plans for protecting athletes’ free speech.
  • China has restricted the WeChat accounts of human rights activists and some academics as the Party cracks down on dissent before the Olympics.
  • China imprisons and detains journalists without consequence, weaponizes surveillance, and physically threatens journalists to censor them. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, China remains the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the third year in a row, with 50 behind bars. Another report found that media freedom in China is declining at “breakneck speed.” Intimidation tactics include online trolling, physical assaults, cyber hacking, and visa denials.

China’s repression extends to the economic sphere. Although the Party encouraged some economic development to further its global ambitions, the Party recently cracked down on companies and executives that dared to challenge the Party’s monopoly on control, including innovative tech magnate Jack Ma. These moves are already starting to slow China’s economy. China’s leaders understand that economic liberty begets political freedom – and they are more than willing to let the economy suffer as a price of maintaining complete political control.

For the rest of the world, particularly the Western democracies, China serves as a challenge and cautionary tale. Chinese aggression should unite the free world behind a common set of values and principles. In a free society, no government should use its authority in a punitive fashion to discourage free speech or to limit the economic liberty of disfavored entities.

As we enjoy the Winter Olympics and cheer on Team USA, let’s remember that the values of freedom and liberty inherent among all people, even in parts of the world, such as China, where those values are currently not allowed to flourish.