By Yew Lun Tian BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing’s COVID-shortened Olympic torch relay began on Wednesday with basketball great Yao Ming and a Chinese soldier wounded in a bloody 2020 border clash with India among the first to carry the symbolic flame on a journey that will last only three days. The route taking the flame to landmarks including the Great Wall is far more modest than the globe-spanning tour ahead of Beijing’s 2008 Summer Games that was disrupted by protests. Because of COVID-19, only selected members of the public will witness the relay, as will be the case during the Feb. 4-20 Game…