2022 Games introduced to UN Assembly

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games have been introduced to the 74th General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York.

"This marks the return of the Winter Olympic Games to a city that has successfully hosted the 29th Summer Olympic Games (in 2008)," said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN. He was speaking on Monday during the General Assembly on the topic of "Sport for development and peace: building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal".

The 24th Winter Olympic Games will open in Beijing in February 2022.

Zhang said China will work closely with the International Olympic Committee to present "a fantastic, extraordinary and excellent Olympic Games to the world, which will advance the development of the Games and winter sports and fully bring into play the positive role of sports in world peace, development and people-to-people and cultural exchanges".

He noted that China will hold a "green" Olympic Games and "prioritize ecological consideration, resources conservation and environmental friendliness by developing and implementing a low-carbon management work plan, whereby green power will be used in all Winter Olympic venues to strive for carbon neutrality".

"We will adhere to the principle of wide participation, joint contribution and benefit sharing by actively mobilizing social forces for the preparation of the Games and accelerating the development and promotion of winter sports," he said.

"We will put people at the center so as to benefit our people and will give women, children and persons with disabilities more opportunities to take part in sports activities," he added.

Zhang said China will continue to promote "openness" at the Games and will strengthen sports cooperation and people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world.

China will create a window for promoting the Olympic spirit and exchanges among civilizations, along with mutual learning.

Zhang said China will combat corruption and uphold integrity in hosting the Olympics, tighten oversight of the preparations and adopt zero tolerance for doping so that "the Beijing Winter Olympic Games will be as clean and pure as ice and snow".

The Chinese delegation supported the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution on the "Olympic truce", as it represents a call of justice by all member states. As a co-sponsor of the resolution, China urges all member states to strive to bridge differences, resolve disputes and stop the use of all military force and hostility during the Olympic Games, Zhang said.

"Sports are an important indicator of social development and human progress," he said, noting that the Olympic spirit is the common aspiration of people around the world as it always advocates unity, friendship, peace and the exchanges between and the integration of different countries and civilizations, and their harmonious coexistence.

Zhang said currently the international community is faced with multiple challenges: Unilateralism, protectionism and bullying behaviors have severely undermined multilateralism, disrupted the international rule of law, created confrontations, and damaged mutual trust and friendship among peoples of all countries.

"Many people of insight are worried that the world will witness a great fracture; the international community is at a crossroads," he said.

"We firmly stand by multilateralism, side with the vast majority of the UN members, stand for fairness and justice and side with the trend of the times," he said.