If you're going to set up an event to make Chinese people think the world admires China, you'd better be sure it will look admired on the day.

From the CCP's point of view, the whole point of gaining rights to host the Winter Olympics next year was to push a certain well-worn propaganda button. Now there seems to be a malfunction, as foreign countries use the event to condemn China.

This week, the US, Australia, Britain and Canada said that, to protest against Chinese human rights abuses, they would refrain from sending officials (but not athletes) to the games, which will begin on February 4. Lithuania was the leader of this movement, making its announcement on December 3.

As I write this, the European Union countries and Japan are thinking about what to do.

The growing diplomatic boycott of the games hardly sends the message that the CCP wants the Chinese people to hear.

Day after day, its news media run stories on any number of subjects that imply foreigners think highly of their country. The tactic is grounded in an important element of Chinese culture: each person's desire for face (admiration, high regard or at least respect).

So one story might say something like: "The world is watching as China launches a mission to the moon." Another could be: "Foreign experts are amazed by a Chinese scientific breakthrough." Or: "Global leaders in such-and-such are coming to Beijing to hear China's views."

The idea is to make people feel proud, more nationalistic, and pleased with the CCP's performance.

So when the International Olympic Committee in 2001 gave Beijing the 2008 Summer Olympics, then in 2015 handed it next year's winter games, it was also presenting the party with opportunities for sustaining its rule.

This worked really well for the CCP in 2008. During the Summer Olympics in that year, I noticed only one disappointment among the punters in Beijing: some had heard that foreigners thought the event lacked a party atmosphere (as indeed it did, since the control freaks of the CCP couldn't stand the idea of masses of unmanaged people at street parties).

In general, those games came off really well and people thought their country had impressed the world.

Now the 2022 Winter Olympics may carry a signal that China, far from admired, is condemned and disliked.

Worse, if enough countries join the diplomatic boycott of the games, Chinese people will better appreciate the scale of foreign concern about human rights abuses against Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group in the far-western province of Xinjiang.

So far, as this column has previously mentioned, the minority of people in China who pay much attention to foreign news tend to dismiss reports of oppression of Uighurs as a fabrication, probably by the media outlets themselves.

That will be harder to accept if most democratic governments send the same message. And that signal is amplified by all the hype the party's propagandists have poured into the winter games; they've been doing all they can to make Chinese people pay attention and think the event is wildly important.

The boycott problem is still developing for the party, as countries progressively make up their minds.

The US is easy enough for propagandists to dismiss, since Chinese people have long regarded it as an enemy, more or less - though, curiously, as an enemy for which they have the highest regard.

And Australia, Britain and Canada are just three more members of what is commonly seen as an English-speaking team, the former now painted as particularly unfriendly.

So the really important players in this business are European countries. France has said EU members will co-ordinate their actions in relation to the games.

The CCP's response so far has been to minimise domestic news coverage of the boycotts. On Wednesday, when Australia said its officials would not attend, the sports section of China's most important news service, Xinhua News Agency, did indeed lead with a story about this country. But it just quoted the Australian Olympic Committee saying our athletes were ready.

The underlying message to any Chinese who had heard of the boycott: all is well, the games will go ahead.

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And a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said of Australian officials: "Whether they come or not, nobody cares."

Actually, his line is more persuasive to foreign than Chinese ears, because the desire for face demands that other countries' dignitaries should dignify the event.

Australians probably couldn't imagine more boring television than shots of besuited foreign worthies at an opening ceremony, but in China that would be expected and indeed satisfying.

By now the party must be wondering whether it will ever again want to rely on such an international event for propaganda.

Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to debase itself.

Its Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson, said on Tuesday it would not send ministers to the games, because of a range of factors "mostly to do with COVID."

So New Zealand's non-attendance is not a protest, you see. Going is just not practicable.

That's what the CCP wants to hear. And, by offering the pandemic excuse, the New Zealand government can hope to avoid criticism from other democratic countries, and indeed from principled New Zealanders, about its failure to take a stand.

Once again, New Zealand gutlessly ducks for cover and lets other countries take on the burden of dealing with China.