TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — U.S.-based Chinese human rights activist Wang Dan (王丹) on Sunday (Feb. 6) lambasted the extravagant banquet for 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics guests as a testimony to Chinese leader Xi Jinping's (習近平) imperial dream.

In a photo released by state media Xinhua News Agency, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛) were seen hosting a lavish banquet on Saturday (Feb. 5) to welcome foreign dignitaries who attended the opening ceremony of the sports event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The feast featured a gigantic table embellished with a “sprawling vista” boasting forests, flowers, and snow in what resembles a Chinese scroll painting, according to Xinhua. Xi was proud to proclaim that Beijing had become the first city to have hosted both the summer and winter Olympics in his address to the guests, wrote the report.

Wang Dan, one of the prominent figures in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, criticized in a social media post that the banquet, while grand, was tacky and revealed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s opulent characteristics. The picture shows the true colors of the CCP, which squanders people’s money while hypocritically stressing the importance of austerity, Wang blasted.