China's 2008 Olympics heralded its arrival on the world stage, but this year's Games will be very different

The world could hardly be more different from the last time Olympic athletes entered Beijing's bird's nest stadium. 

Back then, action-star Jackie Chan stood atop the Great Wall belting out «Beijing welcomes you» as part of a star-studded anthem opening China to the world.

The country was at the absolute peak of its economic rise, growing its economy at a rate of more than 10 per cent per year.

Chinese tourists were at the beginning of a travel boom that would see their numbers rise threefold in just a decade.

Facebook and YouTube were accessible in China. Google still had an office there and no-one had ever heard of WeChat.

The 2008 Olympic Games appeared to signal the country's desire to move away from decades of isolation that defined Mao's China, towards more interaction and «win-win cooperation» with the world.

More than a decade later, however, China seems to be reversing course.

Nowadays it is, in many ways, cut off from the rest of the world.

After several years of a noticeably more assertive shift in China’s diplomatic and media tone, Xi Jinping has dropped the first hint that the country's confrontational style needs adjustment, writes Bill Birtles.

Its borders are closed to visitors amid a raging pandemic abroad and restrictions on flights and three-week hotel quarantine requirements upon return have stopped the flow of Chinese tourists to other countries.

China's online world is now largely cut off too. The country is devoid of international tech services such as Google and Whatsapp, and a parallel set of highly censored, homegrown equivalents have replaced them.

Within both the government and the general population, there's a view that China is making a very different statement to the world with this year's Games,