Editor's note: Xia Lu is an associate professor at the School of Marxism Studies and a research fellow at the National Academy of Development and Strategies, Renmin University of China. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected the preparations for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing on January 4, the first workday of the New Year and the 30-day countdown to the opening of Beijing 2022.

It was also Xi's fifth inspection since his visit to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Switzerland in early 2017. As Beijing also held Olympic Summer Games in 2008, the city will be remembered in history as the first and only one that held both summer and winter games so far, attaching significance to China's opening-up and its socioeconomic development in nearly half a century.

As early as in mid-2015, some six years ago, when the IOC officially declared that Beijing would be the city to hold the 2022 Winter Games, the Standing Committee of the CPC central politburo requested that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games be prepared and carried out with four major principles: green, shared, open and clean.

Not coincidentally, the Fifth Plenary Session of 18th CPC Central Committee in 2015, which set the agenda for the 13th Five-Year-Plan, promoted the "new development idea" for the next phase with the five principles of "innovated, coordinated, green, open and shared" being the core.

Thus, it could be argued that to China and its leadership, the Beijing Winter Olympics is not merely an international sports event largely sponsored by the government like in other countries but also a showcase and testing field of China's new development idea.

Making the Olympics green is the realization of President Xi's ecological civilization idea vividly illustrated by his words, "Mountains and rivers green are mountains of silver and gold."

The National Speed Skating Oval, locally known as the "Ice Ribbon," is considered the first speed skating hall in the world to use a carbon dioxide transcritical direct cooling system to make ice, the most cutting-edge technology in this field. Not to mention that all the competition venues at the 2022 Winter Olympics will be supplied by 100 percent green power.

Preparing for the Olympics with the principle of sharing is a vivid interpretation of President Xi's important instructions of "striving to hand over two excellent answer sheets for both the preparation of the Winter Olympic Games and the promotion of local development."

It is exemplified in the case of poverty reduction in Hebei Province, which is co-hosting the event. In May 2019, Chongli, formerly a remote, underdeveloped district of Zhangjiakou located in Hebei, one of the venues for the ski events, was completely lifted off poverty. The principle of sharing also means encouraging people not familiar with the Winter Olympics to take part in ice and snow sports.

Hosting the Olympic Games is a concrete embodiment of the concept of "promoting a community with a shared future for mankind" proposed by President Xi. In 2017, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee launched the first global recruitment, hiring foreign experts to fully engage in the preparatory work and inviting overseas media outlets based in Beijing to experience the development process.

The organizing committee has fully considered the on-site needs of the Games and the use of the facilities after the events, adhering to the principle of economizing the manpower, energy and material resources. For instance, the Wukesong Sports Center can complete the conversion from indoor ice rinks to basketball courts and vice versa within six hours. Additionally, during the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics period, the Main Press Center (MPC) and International Broadcasting Center will be merged as the Main Media Center.

As it's been argued recently, Beijing impressed the world in 2008, and now it is ready to do so once again.

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