Vincent Boland: All in the Games: Winter Olympics will reflect the new China

Recent developments suggest Beijing feels it no longer needs the West’s money. But a retreat from Western financial markets might not be all bad – if it results in domestic reform and a crackdown on corruption

Picture of China’s president, Xi Jinping, at the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing. In 2008, the country was at an advanced stage of integrating into the international system. Now it appears to be having second thoughts. Picture: Getty

In August 2008, as the Summer Olympics got under way in Beijing, the world got its first extended glimpse of the new China. The country was the rising power, but most of us, it seems fair to say, knew little about it. So the games were the occasion for the Chinese Communist Party to showcase a modern, successful nation effortlessly capable of putting on a spectacular show.

Fourteen years ago the global economy was doing ...