BEIJING — The Chinese flag waved strong and proud throughout the entire Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Olympic Games, an impressive sight all its own … and even more so because of the fact that there was no wind inside the Bird’s Nest.

The flag, which waved in what seemed to be a gale-force breeze, was an appropriate symbol for China’s approach to these Games: perfect beauty, even if a little extra enhancement is necessary.

Coming in at 125 minutes — less than half as long as the mammoth 2008 Opening Ceremony, which lasted an epic 250 minutes — this year’s extravaganza felt restrained, but only because the world’s already very aware of the spectacle China can produce. Even so, China left an impression because of sheer numbers. If 10 dancers performing traditional Chinese dances is art, then a thousand dancers performing those same dances is art with power.

The Ceremony hit all the usual marks — spectacular choreography and visual effects, theatrical representations of the beauty of the natural world, too-long airy platitudes from Olympic officials, singing and dancing children. It concluded with a pair of 2022 Chinese Olympians placing the torch amid a snowflake made up of the names of the participating nations.

As always, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron is a moment that delivers, despite all the machinations that lead up to it. What set this moment apart was who carried the flame to the cauldron. Zhao Jiawen, a nordic combined athlete, was joined by Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a cross-country skier who is said to be of Uyghur heritage.

Torch bearers Dinigeer Yilamujiang and Jiawen Zhao of Team China light the Olympic Cauldron during the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the Beijing National Stadium on February 04, 2022 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

This was no doubt a statement from China to the rest of the world, which has condemned China for its treatment of the Uyghurs, a muslim ethnic group in the northwest part of the country. It is believed that more than 1 million Uyghurs are being held in "re-education" camps in the region of Xinjiang.

Prior to the torch bearers entering the stadium, the parade of 91 nations — led, as per Olympic custom, by Greece — lasted 65 joyful minutes. The athletes’ march is always barely controlled chaos; the athletes wave, hop, mug for any visible camera, film the scene from their own phones. They’re the polar opposite of the highly choreographed show that precedes and follows them, and they give an air of humanity to a production that so often desperately needs it.

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Fireworks visible from across a city are impressive, yes. But they’re nothing compared to the grateful smile of an Olympian who’s living out their life’s dream. (Even better: the Closing Ceremony march, which isn’t so much a march as a moving party, with athletes mixing and blending without regard to nationality.)

Led by curling skip John Shushter, a five-time Olympian, and Brittany Bowe, a speedskater who won praise for giving up one of her Olympic slots to a teammate, the U.S. team turned out in significant numbers. (Bowe was named flag bearer after Team USA’s initial choice, bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor, tested positive for COVID and remains in isolation.)

Human rights activists had asked athletes to boycott the Ceremony to protest China’s human rights violations, but a strong majority of the 200-plus American athletes walked — a substantial number given that many skip the ceremony to focus on competition or, in the case of this particular Olympics, to remain at their far distant venues.

The 2022 Beijing Olympics — an Olympics already suffused with controversy — are now officially underway. It was a rocky and difficult road to get to this point, but the Olympics made it … and now China has the world stage to itself for the next two weeks.