At the heart of the Olympics is something called "the Olympic Movement."

"The Olympic Movement" is intended to, in the words of the Olympics website, "contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced in accordance with Olympism and its values."

If that sounds rather vague, digging a little deeper, we find that the Olympic values are considered to be "excellence, friendship and respect." These values constitute the foundation on which the Olympic Movement builds its activities to promote sport, culture, and education, with a view to building a better world.

This all sounds laudable. But let’s take a look at how the current Winter Olympics Games in Beijing are going through the prism of those ideals. There is much to unpack.

The best place to begin is with the case of Peng Shuai, the Chinese professional tennis player who disappeared from public view after making a public accusation of sexual assault against a senior figure within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) — on whose tour Peng used to compete — has been robust in its defense of one of their own. It has canceled all tournaments in China, despite the economic consequences of that decision, and issued repeated statements expressing concern for the player, her freedom, and her well-being.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken a very different approach. Its president, Thomas Bach, has taken part in several staged photoshoots with the player, sat down at a meal with her and her CCP minders in Beijing this week, and then ludicrously claimed that this, plus a stage-managed interview with French newspaper L’Equipe (shame on them for conducting that and accepting all the CCP’s pre-conditions), "proved" that she was fine.

The IOC has colluded in Beijing’s abduction and detention of a professional sportsperson and attempted to help the regime to whitewash the issue in the international press. Even for an organization that allowed Nazi Germany to host the Summer Olympics in 1936, this is a new low.

While L’Equipe was more than welcome to participate when the CCP was in full control of the situation, efforts by the international media to cover the Winter Olympics themselves have been fraught with challenges.

A report published before the Olympics by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) noted that foreign journalists in China are facing “unprecedented hurdles.” The CCP’s response was to describe the FCCC as "an illegal organization."

With IOC cooperation, Beijing has tried to keep all foreign journalists inside a closed Olympic "bubble" and not allowed them to move outside designated areas. As a result, more than 90% of journalists heading to Beijing didn’t plan to enter the Olympic zone at all, in order to be able to move more freely.

All international journalists have been closely followed by CCP officials, interviews with the general public have been closely monitored, and one Dutch TV reporter was physically bundled off the air during a live report. The IOC has described this as “an isolated incident” without noting that such an incident would never happen in a country where the media is free to report what it likes.

All journalists (and athletes) have also been advised to take burner devices with them to the Olympics, since the CCP cannot be trusted not to place tracking software and spyware onto mobile phones and computers.

Ahead of the Winter Olympics, much of the coverage has focused on the diplomatic boycott of the Games by several democratic countries, while the tag "Genocide Games" has stuck in the minds of many people.

It is therefore little wonder that the viewing figures for the Opening Ceremony hit an all-time low, something that will displease the one demographic the IOC wants to keep happy more than anything: sponsors. Public engagement with the Games on social media and other platforms has also been lower than usual.

Athletes competing at the Games are also far from happy with the way they are being treated.

The food provided to athletes has been described by many as "inedible," with many complaining that they are losing weight and posting images of meals that wouldn’t look out of place in a prison canteen. That is perhaps fitting, as a lot of athletes have also complained about their living conditions, with some describing them as "prison-like" and others describing a lack of hygiene, insufficient Wi-Fi, and irregular food deliveries.

For those testing positive for COVID-19 at the Olympics, the situation is even worse. Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans has described being forced into isolation after being in contact with a positive case, being bounced between different quarantine facilities, and given little information and no update about whether she would even be allowed to compete.

Polish speedskater Natalia Maliszewska wrote on Twitter (in Polish) that she has "cried until I have no more tears." Maliszewska was barred from her qualifying race after testing positive for COVID on Jan. 30th. She was unexpectedly released from quarantine the night before the race only to be sent back again after testing positive just before the race, then released on Sunday after testing negative.

Some might see this mistreatment of athletes as gamesmanship. But even those who wouldn’t accuse the Chinese of cheating might raise questions about the speedskater judges who dubiously disqualified two South Korean skaters or the Chinese skater who appeared to deliberately trip a Canadian opponent.

The poor sportsmanship of the Chinese public has also been highlighted by the torrent of abuse thrown at U.S.-born Chinese figure skater Beverley Zhu, who renounced her U.S. citizenship to compete for China but fell while competing and ended up finishing last.

Which brings us neatly back to the Olympic Movement’s stated values of "excellence, friendship, and respect." The Winter Olympics in Beijing make it abundantly clear that these so-called Olympic values clearly represent little more than a veneer over the IOC’s ethical vacuum and greed.

There is one phrase that stands out above all others: "the Olympic Movement is the concerted, organized, universal and permanent actio, carried out under the supreme authority of the IOC."

The phrase "supreme authority" reveals that this is an organization far more interested in its own power and wealth than any of the values it laughably claims to purport. By consorting with dictators and genocidal regimes, the IOC has shown where its true priorities lie.

Staging the Olympics in Beijing, a city wholly unsuited for a winter sporting spectacle, has left us with the unedifying sight of ski slopes covered in fake snow set in the middle of a gray industrial wasteland in the heart of one of the most polluted cities on earth. But the IOC gets its money and VIP treatment, so none of that — or any of the other issues outlined in this article — matters to them.

The Winter Olympics in Beijing has nothing to do with "excellence, friendship, and respect."

Far from contributing to "building a peaceful and better world," it is helping to propagandize and sportswash a brutal communist regime that has held at least a million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps. This is what "the Olympic Movement" represents in the 21st century.

No self-respecting democratic country or socially responsible company should have anything to do with the Beijing Olympics or the IOC. And neither should they have any further dealings with this corrupt and morally bankrupt institution until it has undergone wholesale reform and repented.