Chinese President Xi Jinping began his visit to Russia for the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games at the invitation of Russian President Putin, at the time when China was still in the middle of the Spring Festival season. It is certainly not a coincidence that Mr. Xi chose Russia as his first leg of foreign visits after he took office last March, showing the close ties between the two sides.  

All the events of the Winter Olympics are popular in Russia. Situated in the north temperate zone with harsh weather in winter, the whole nation’s talent and enthusiasm for winter sports games is no surprise. With no favorable conditions for winter events, countries in the Southern Hemisphere are not ideal hosts for Winter Olympics. All the previous Winter Olympics were held in North America or Europe except one which was held in Sapporo in northern Japan. Not a single Game was ever held in Russia (not even in Soviet Union), a fact the whole nation, Mr. Putin included, found hard to accept. Putin’s personal penchant for winter sports is also widely known. As early as seven years ago, he headed a delegation to Guatemala to attend the IOC Congress there and made a statement in both English and French, and finally helped the country win the bid for the Sochi Winter Games. Afterwards, Russia also won the bid for the 2018 Football World Cup.

Russia, once a longstanding forerunner in the Olympics gold medal list, has only hosted one Summer Games by far-the Moscow Games in 1980. The bitter memories of that Games is still fresh in Putin’s mind (a KGB at that time) when a large number of countries boycotted the Games because of Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Now the whole country has been mobilized to provide the most favorable conditions for the Winter Games. However, Mr. Putin is still under pressure because a number of political leaders from the West boycott Sochi for the controversial gay issues. But for the strongman Putin, such episode is nothing to care about. The succuss of Sochi is sure to come despite the terrorist bombs in the preceding months near the venue. President Xi’s visit will certainly add to the Sochi’s success and also to the robust Sino-Russian relations.

China was famous for its ping-pong diplomacy and later for panda diplomacy. Last year, it initiated the high-speed railway diplomacy. The sports diplomacy comes with the year of the horse. Xi Jinping is the first Chinese leader to attend an opening ceremony of a foreign-held sports event, expanding China’s diplomatic work. President Xi’s personal love of sports is well known and proved by the Olympics Gold Medal given to him by IOC(International Olympics Committee) president Bach last year. When accepting the medal, Xi said that China would honor its firm commitment to more contributions to the Olympics. Moreover, Xi’s visit to Russia will add to Beijing and Zhangjiakou’s joint efforts in bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics. 

Standing at the forefront of the nationwide reform and opening-up campaign, Shanghai successfully held the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Jacques Rogge, then IOC president appreciated and commended Shanghai for its excellent urban infrastructure and venue conditions for the 2011 FINA World Championships at Shanghai, and believed that Shanghai enjoyed a good chance to win if it would make bidding efforts. In the recent sessions of local NPC and CPPCC at Shanghai, it was proposed that Shanghai bid for Olympics. It is hoped that President Xi’s visit will help to reach consensus on Shanghai’s bid and final decisions be made so that Shanghai can make its due contribution to the international Olympics movement.

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