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Just weeks before hosting the Beijing Winter Olympics, China is battling multiple coronavirus outbreaks in half a dozen cities, with the one closest to the capital driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

With the success of the Games and China's national dignity at stake, Beijing is doubling down on its "zero-tolerance" COVID-19 policy.

Across China, more than 20 million people are in some form of lockdown, with many prevented from leaving their homes.

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Commuters wearing face masks to help protect against the coronavirus walk across an intersection in the central business district in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022.  (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Tianjin, only about an hour from Beijing, is on high alert, although it has refrained from imposing a complete lockdown, such as that in Xi'an, a city of 14 million.

Instead, it has sealed off several residential communities and universities, canceled almost all flights, suspended high-speed train service and closed highways. People leaving the city are required to present negative COVID-19 tests and receive special permission.

The city conducted mass testing for a second time for its 14 million residents on Wednesday, and asked them to stay put in their homes until they receive a negative result.

Tianjin's proximity to Beijing makes the timing particularly fraught. During the Tokyo Olympics in July, Japan saw a widespread outbreak driven by the delta variant.

Despite that, the disruptions for people in Tianjin remain relatively light.

"Everything is fine, the supermarkets and restaurants, you can go to all normally," said Yu Xuan, who works at a university in Tianjin.

Wang Dacheng, another resident, said his father who has trouble walking was able to get tested in their apartment.

"Tianjin people are pretty optimistic, everyone's been very calm and collected," Wang said.

Elsewhere, in Xi'an to the west and several cities in Henan province, the measures are far more onerous, leading to complaints that people sequestered in their apartments were running out of food.

China has followed the uncompromising policy almost from the start of the pandemic, beginning with the unprecedented step of sealing off 11 million people in the central city Wuhan where the virus was first detected, along and other parts of Hubei province in January 2020.

It has been able to deal with local outbreaks through lockdowns, strict border controls and contact tracing aided by increased digital surveillance. The measures have kept the virus from spreading into a full-fledged national outbreak so far. The vaccination rate now tops 85%.

With the Olympics due to begin on Feb. 4 and support staff already arriving, the task has become even more critical. Whether Beijing' s safeguards will hold up in face of the omicron variant is a crucial question.

People wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus walk past a statue of the Winter Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen near the Olympic Green in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

"I think it truly is a critical juncture for China. Can it stave off omicron?" said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago.

China reported 124 domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, including 76 in Henan province and 41 in Tianjin. Authorities have reported a total of 104,379 cases, 3,460 of them currently active, and 4,636 deaths, a figure that hasn't changed in months.

Beijing's Olympic bubble is even stricter than Tokyo's, which was mostly effective in stopping transmission, despite some leakages, said Kenji Shibuya, research director at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and a public health expert.

Beijing faces a potentially bigger risk because the more contagious omicron variant has shown itself adept at evading vaccines.

Moreover, the lack of widespread outbreaks means the Chinese population is protected only by vaccines and not from antibodies produced by previous infections, said Dr. Vineeta Bal, a top Indian immunologist.

"The Olympics would be the first trial," said Bal. Omicron "can easily travel in China."

Unlike the Tokyo Olympics bubble, there will be no contact between those inside and the outside world.

Officials, athletes, staff and journalists will travel between hotels and competition venues on specially designated vehicles in what is described as a closed-loop system. Chinese will have to quarantine for three weeks upon leaving the bubble.

Even trash from within will be handled separately and Beijing's traffic police say anyone involved in a collision with a designated Winter Olympics vehicle should take care to not come into contact with those on board and wait for a special team to handle matters.

If strictly enforced, such measures should be able to prevent the spread of the virus within the bubble, said Kei Saito, a virologist at the University of Tokyo. But outside, it could be a different story.

Workers wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus stand inside a screening area for Winter Olympic spectators set up near the Olympic Green in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022.  (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

"Omicron is three to four times more transmissible than delta ... I think it's almost impossible to control the spread of omicron," Saito said.

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Yet, despite the unabating global pandemic and controversies including a U.S.-led diplomatic boycott, organizers are determined that the Games will go on.

"The world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready," the Chinese president and leader of the ruling Communist Party, Xi Jinping, said during an inspection tour of competition venues last week.

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EXPLAINER: Why didnt China send troops to aid Kazakhstan?

BEIJING (AP) — China gave strong verbal backing to Kazakhstan's leader for his deadly crackdown to quell violent unrest, but stood aside as Russia sent in special forces troops.

Resource-rich Kazakhstan, on China's western border, has economic and strategic importance for Beijing and is an important link in its "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative to expand its global trade and political influence in rivalry with the U.S. and its allies.

China's response to the crisis underscores how it prefers to influence outcomes with verbal assurances and offers of assistance, without committing troops.

"The growing closeness between Russia and China means we can expect more rhetorical support for Moscow's overseas ventures, particularly when they go up against Western geostrategic aims," said Rana Mitter, an Oxford University China expert.

"However, China remains extremely reluctant to deploy People's Liberation Army troops outside its own territory, except in areas such as U.N. peacekeeping operations, as it would contradict its constant statements that unlike the U.S., China does not intervene in other countries' conflicts," Mitter said.

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WHAT ARE CHINA'S GOALS IN CENTRAL ASIA?

Since the demise of the Soviet Union, China has steadily expanded its economic and political influence in a region that Russia considers its own backyard. As the largest and by far the wealthiest Central Asian state, Kazakhstan is key, acting as the buckle in China's "Belt and Road" initiative, and its authoritarian politics act as a bulwark against democratic movements in Ukraine and elsewhere that China derides as Western-engineered "color revolutions."

China's ruling Communist Party, which violently repressed its own pro-democracy challenge in 1989, views such movements, whether in Georgia or Hong Kong, as a threat to its own stability. In a message to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev amid the unrest, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said his country would "resolutely oppose external forces deliberately creating turmoil and instigating a 'color revolution' in Kazakhstan."

China's position dovetails with its strident opposition to outside criticism of its policies, whether its human rights record or its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, as meddling in its internal affairs.

China's influence in Central Asia still has limits, however, and Kazakhstan may feel uneasy about inviting in Chinese troops, given China's harsh treatment of ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities within its borders, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

"An important element of China's foreign policy under Xi is to make the world safe for authoritarian states and stop color revolutions from spreading," Tsang said.

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WHEN DOES CHINA INTERVENE?

China frequently vows retaliation for any criticism of its policies, especially when the offenders are the U.S. and its allies. It is far friendlier with autocrats, pledging non-interference and cooperation with whomever is in power, regardless of their records on human rights and corruption.

That's evidenced in its dealings with regimes that others criticize, from Myanmar's military leaders to Hungary's Viktor Orban. While not recognizing the Taliban, it is hedging its bets in Afghanistan by working with the country's current rulers, despite their espousal of the form of radical Islam that Beijing has sought to keep from infiltrating its restive, largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, which shares a narrow border with Afghanistan and a much larger one with Kazakhstan.

China generally reserves action, military and otherwise, for cases in which its own security is perceived as threatened, as in the 1950-53 Korean War, or more recently, in violent incidents along its disputed border with India, and especially with Taiwan, which China threatens to invade if it doesn't agree to unite. Beijing responded with ruthless trade and diplomatic retaliation against Lithuania when the tiny Baltic nation broke with diplomatic convention by allowing Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under the name "Taiwan" instead of "Chinese Taipei."

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HOW DOES CHINA VIEW MILITARY ALLIANCES?

Troops, mostly from Russia, were deployed to Kazakhstan last week by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a grouping of six former Soviet states, at the president's request amid unprecedented violence. China officially eschews such security alliances, although The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Beijing dominates along with Moscow, has a security component, currently limited to joint training and other non-combat missions.

Unlike the CSTO, there is "no agreement about sending troops from member countries of the SCO," Chinese international security expert Li Wei said. "In addition, China sticks to the fundamental principle of not using force in other countries."

U.N. Peacekeeping Operations remain the rare exception, and China is quick to point out that it is the largest contributor of forces to such missions among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Given the growing might of China's military, some experts expect Beijing to become more amenable to military interventions in the future. Oxford's Mitter also points to a growing "grey zone" of Chinese private security enterprises that can be used to protect Chinese interests "without any formal government intervention."

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