This time, China has set a budget of about $US3 billion, a figure that includes the building of competition venues, but not projects like a $US1 billion high-speed rail line and a $US5 billion expressway.

The pandemic is making the Games even more expensive. The bill for last summer’s Olympics in Tokyo included $US2.8 billion in coronavirus prevention costs alone. China’s “zero COVID” strategy, which focuses on eradicating outbreaks, has meant infection control measures are much more elaborate.

“For China’s international image, prestige, and face, as the Chinese would say, nothing is too expensive,”

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University

China’s concerns about the pandemic have dashed hopes that the Games would draw tourists. Organisers said last autumn they would not sell tickets to foreign spectators. Then they announced last month that most Chinese residents would not get to go either, prompting a last-minute rush by hotel managers in Beijing to cut drastically the high room rates they had set for February.

Despite these difficulties, Chinese authorities have insisted that they have stayed within the operating budget.

Officials have said the lack of spectators has meant fewer employees are needed at the Games. China also saved money by cancelling a welcoming ceremony for foreign visitors and shortening the torch relay to just three days, the Beijing organising committee said in an emailed reply to questions. Beijing has also been able to reuse competition venues, a giant media centre and other facilities built for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

At $US3.1 billion, China’s operating budget is comparable to the average, inflation-adjusted cost of hosting previous Winter Olympics, according to the University of Oxford researchers.

The government has also pressed businesses to take on more of the cost of hosting the Games. Other host cities of previous Olympics have spent heavily to build lodging for athletes and journalists and a media center. China has taken a different approach.

In Zhangjiakou, an area near Beijing where some competitions are being held, Chinese authorities have temporarily taken over the Malaysian-owned Genting Secret Garden ski resort. The resort expanded its capacity to 3,800 rooms and vacation apartments, up from 380 before China won its Olympic bid. Lim Chee Wah, founder and co-owner of the resort, said in an interview that he had not been told how much he would be compensated by the government for the use of the resort for most of the winter season, but that he trusted it would be fair.

“We said, fine, thank you, but we’ll negotiate how to do the compensation — that will be done later,” he said.

China also doesn’t count long-term infrastructure investments made in the years before the Games.

The national government spent $US2 billion building an expressway from northwest Beijing to Yanqing, where Olympic sliding and Alpine skiing events are being held, and an additional $US3.6 billion to extend the expressway to the Taizicheng valley, where the ski resorts are.

Before Beijing won its bid to host the 2022 Olympics, the government began spending $US8.4 billion on a high-speed rail line that whisks travellers from Beijing toward Inner Mongolia at speeds of up to 217 mph. After winning the Olympics, Beijing added $US1 billion to that project to build an extra segment that peels off the main line and goes up into the mountains to Taizicheng.

“The Chinese are not counting any of that — they say they would have built that anyway,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College who has published three books about the economics of the Olympics. “I question whether they were going to do it anyway, and if they were going to do it anyway, why do they have to host the Olympics.”

Loading

China regards the Olympics as transforming Beijing, which gets only a foot of natural snow most winters, into a global destination for winter sports.

“The success in opening the Winter Olympics has brought positive economic benefits and created new sources of growth for the local economy,” said the top spokesman for the city of Beijing, Xu Hejian.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.