China and the Olympics: reflections historical, personal, and otherwise
The issue of China and the Olympics has been with us for a long time. “Here we go again” — that’s how I began a piece in October 2000. Beijing had tried to get the Summer Games for 2000; now it was trying to get the Summer Games for 2008. They would get those ’08 Games. And today — February 4, 2022 — is the opening day of the Winter Games in Beijing.
They almost succeeded in getting the 2000 Games. They lost out to Sydney, by just a hair. It was simply too early. Too early? Yes. The International Olympic Committee made its announcement about 2000 in September 1993. The Chinese authorities had committed their massacre in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. It was a little too early, a little too soon.
But they tried mightily to get the 2000 Games, pulling out all the stops. They poured billions of dollars into “Olympic construction.” They launched a campaign for public hygiene: “Mobilize the Masses for a Fly-Free City!” They also stopped monitoring foreign journalists so closely — and even released a couple of political prisoners.
In short, they instituted some version of the “Olympic Pause.” This was the name given to the Nazis’ easing of oppression in and around 1936. Germany had been awarded the Olympic Games in 1931, two years before the Nazis rose to power. Germany hosted both the Winter Games (Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and the Summer Games (Berlin) in 1936.
By the way, the story we often tell ourselves is that the Olympics were an embarrassment to Hitler. Jesse Owens, the black American trackster, came to Berlin and won four gold medals. So much for the Nazis’ “master race”! It’s a nice story, and there’s some truth to it. But, on the whole, the Games were a boon to Hitler, serving to normalize his state.
William Shirer, the journalist, later wrote the following: “Hitler, we who covered the Games had to concede, turned the Olympics into a dazzling propaganda success for his barbarian regime.” Duff Hart-Davis, in his book Hitler’s Games, has this to say: “That the success of the eleventh Olympiad gave Hitler an enormous boost, both moral and political, nobody could deny.”
The Nazis, Hart-Davis explains, created a big Potemkin village. They were able to put across the illusion of “a perfectly normal place, in which life went on as pleasantly as in any other European country.”
In any event, the Chinese government fell just short, in getting the 2000 Games. The U.S. Congress had passed a resolution against the holding of the Olympics in Beijing. So had the European Parliament. These moves irked the IOC. Its then-president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, grumbled that Western countries were happy to trade with China but not give them the Games.
A good point, you might admit.
Beijing was determined not to be denied the 2008 Games. It was their due, Chinese officials said. “The Olympic Games belong to the whole world,” said one of them. “The fact that the Games have not yet been held in China is a failure of the Olympic movement.” Pressed on the question of human rights, the official huffed, “There is no excuse for denying the dreams of 1.3 billion people.”
But the Chinese government also dangled carrots — human-rightsy ones. The Games “are an opportunity to foster democracy, improve human rights, and integrate China with the rest of the world,” said another official. “By allowing Beijing to host the Games, you will help the development of human rights.”
That would prove chimerical, needless to say.
The IOC made its announcement in July 2001: The Games would at last go to Beijing. The population, by and large, rejoiced. The Chinese people had Olympic fever. As the government was campaigning for the ’08 Games, thousands of parents named their babies “Aoyun,” for “Olympics.”
National pride is a natural feeling, and often a salutary one. In 2018, I interviewed Fang Zheng, an athlete. He was 17 years old in 1984, when the Summer Games were held in Los Angeles. Before then, China was largely absent from the Olympics. When the national team went to L.A., “we felt that China was finally part of the world,” said Fang Zheng. He and the whole nation were glued to the television. Their women’s volleyball team beat the United States to win the gold medal. That was huge.
Five years later, Fang Zheng was among the protesters in Tiananmen Square. A tank ran over him, severing his legs. Three years later, he won two gold medals at the All-China Disabled Athletic Games. He is a very tough man, physically and mentally.
Around the time of the 2008 Olympics, Beijing let Fang Zheng and his family go. They allowed them to leave China. The regime did not want foreign journalists to be asking Fang Zheng too many questions, about Tiananmen Square or anything else. He now lives in the United States, working in the Chinese democracy movement.
Last year, I talked with Nathan Law, the young democracy leader from Hong Kong, now exiled in Britain. He was 15 when Beijing hosted the ’08 Games. He was “very nationalistic” in those days, he told me. The Olympics made him proud, understandably. All eyes were on China during those weeks.
In the run-up to the ’08 Games, Hu Jintao, the Communist Party boss at the time, spoke of the “national image.” This was of supreme importance. China must not look bad — by some definition of “bad” — in the world’s eyes. The mayor of Beijing, Wang Qishan, said, “We have to have a good Olympics. Otherwise, not only will our generation lose face, but so will our ancestors.”
The ’08 Games would be China’s “coming-out party,” everyone agreed: the moment when China took its rightful place upon the vast world stage. But there were stumbles on the way to the party.
Beijing was the principal backer of the Sudanese dictatorship, which was committing genocide in the Darfur region of that country. In America, the actress Mia Farrow called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. She dubbed them the “Genocide Games.” She put particular pressure on Steven Spielberg, the great director, who was advising Beijing on the theatrical elements of the Olympics. “Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?” she asked. (Riefenstahl made the infamous film Olympia, about 1936.) Spielberg withdrew, citing Sudan.
There was also Tibet — on which Beijing was cracking down, viciously. Protesters dogged the steps of runners in the Olympic-torch relay, in various countries. This infuriated the Chinese regime, which thought the national image was being tarnished — not by the broken bones in Tibet but by the protests.
Through any avenue they could, Chinese dissidents and democrats tried to send the world a message: The authorities were bent on presenting a false image of China to the world. They were Potemkinizing a brutal, murderous police state. In an open letter, Teng Biao and Hu Jia wrote the following:
You will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg. You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.
Teng Biao was detained and interrogated. He was released, however, in fairly short order. He now lives and works in the United States. Hu Jia was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Other democrats and dissidents, who criticized Beijing for its Olympic maneuvers, were imprisoned or “disappeared” (i.e., made to disappear). Among them were Yang Chunlin, Gao Zhisheng, and Wang Dejia.
All of these people — incredibly brave — deserve articles of their own.
Return, please, to 1993, when Beijing was trying to win the 2000 Summer Games. Nine days before the IOC made its announcement, the regime released Wei Jingsheng, one of China’s most prominent political prisoners. This was a last-minute gambit. Wei Jingsheng went into exile, in America. On the eve of the ’08 Olympics, I asked him some questions.
One was, “Can any good, for Chinese democracy, come out of these Games?” He answered, “If the Chinese Communist Party has a successful Olympics, then it proves that it is in control, both inside China and internationally. It means that the CCP’s life is extended for 20 more years — which means that Chinese democratization is delayed for 20 more years.”
The 2008 Olympics opened on August 8 — 8/8/08. Eight is considered a lucky number by the Chinese. The opening ceremony was held in the new National Stadium, dubbed the “Bird’s Nest.” It was designed by Ai Weiwei, among others. Ai Weiwei has been in exile since 2015, in Europe. He has repeatedly called the Bird’s Nest — and the ’08 Olympics at large — a “fake smile,” flashed by the CCP at the world.
Xi Jinping cut his teeth on those Olympics, so to speak. He was the party official put in charge of them in the final months of preparation. In 2012, he rose to party boss. In 2018, he was named president-for-life. Xi Jinping is presiding over the most oppressive period in China since the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and ended with Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.
In July 2015, the International Olympic Committee awarded the ’22 Winter Games to Beijing. This time, there was no pretense about democratization or integration (with the world). There has not even been a need for an Olympic Pause. The Chinese Communist Party, at this stage, is beyond that.
A report in the New York Times, published on January 22, 2022, put it well: “Very few people today harbor illusions, unlike in 2008, that the privilege of hosting the event will moderate the country’s authoritarian policies. China then sought to meet the world’s terms. Now the world must accept China’s.”
As I talked with Wei Jingsheng in 2008, I also talked with him in 2000. He said, “If China gets the Games, that would inflame extreme nationalism. It would play a harmful role in the moral and spiritual lives of the people. The party would promote itself to anti-Western elements, and it might even be encouraged to attack Taiwan.”
Two weeks ago, I talked with Perry Link, the American China scholar. Even as late as the 1980s, he said, there lingered a sense in Chinese society that socialist ideals had something to offer: We can all get together, we can serve the people, we can do things that benefit everyone. But after the ruling Communists committed the Tiananmen Square Massacre, there was not even lip service to such ideals, from the rulers or anyone else.
Where do you turn when you have no more moral capital to drawn on? How do you claim your right to rule? The Communist Party turned to two things, said Link: money-making — be as materialistic as you want and make as much money as possible — and nationalism. Today, the CCP milks nationalism for all it’s worth. Hosting the Olympics is a key part of that milking.
The whole world is watching us. We are center stage. China takes second place to no one. This is our historic destiny.
There were stumbles on the road to Beijing ’08, as we’ve said. There have been stumbles on the road to Beijing ’22. In 2008, Mia Farrow spoke of “Genocide Games.” Today, Beijing is committing genocide in its own country. The U.S. State Department, among other bodies, has determined that Beijing’s persecution of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang Province — or East Turkestan, as the Uyghurs themselves call that region — constitutes genocide.
Also, the Chinese government has squelched Hong Kong as a free city. Also: Peng Shuai. She is the tennis player who accused a retired Communist big, Zhang Gaoli, of sexually assaulting her. She has since been kept mainly out of view by the government.
People around the world have grumbled over these things. We might grumble, too, about new political prisoners. As in ’08, the authorities have been arresting dissidents and democrats — two of whom are Yang Maodong and Xie Yang. Yet most of us simply go on about our business.
Speaking of business: Elon Musk has just opened his first Tesla store and showroom in Xinjiang Province, or East Turkestan. I think of William F. Buckley Jr., who liked to quote Willi Schlamm, who said, “The problem with socialism is socialism. The problem with capitalism is capitalists.”
On January 12, Stephen Wade of the Associated Press had a report, which began, “The Beijing Winter Olympics are fraught with potential hazards for major sponsors, who are trying to remain quiet about China’s human rights record while protecting at least $1 billion they’ve collectively paid to the IOC.”
In the past, I have quoted A. M. Rosenthal, the late New York Timesman. In a 2001 column about the Olympics, he wrote, “No other dictatorship has ever had more power in the United States.” He was talking about China. And he said he hoped that not all Americans would “mistake the dollar for God.”
What about boycotts? They are always a tricky question, or at least an interesting one. In 1933, after the Nazis took power in Germany — were elected, actually — the American Olympic committees voted to stay away from the ’36 Games if the Nazis refused to allow Jewish athletes to participate on German teams. What did the regime do? They found two token Jews, both living in exile, and installed them on teams. This prevented a boycott.
In 1935, the American consul in Berlin, George S. Messersmith, wrote to the secretary of state, Cordell Hull. He said,
To the Party and to the youth of Germany, the holding of the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 has become the symbol of the conquest of the world by National Socialist doctrine. Should the Games not be held in Berlin, it would be one of the most serious blows which National Socialist prestige could suffer.
In view of the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Ex-president Richard Nixon agreed with him. Interviewed on television, Nixon said, “You can’t just go over there and high-jump with them.”
Today, the U.S. government is staging a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Games. So are a handful of other governments. This means that no official from those governments will attend the Games. A diplomatic boycott falls far short of a total boycott, of the kind the U.S. staged in 1980. But it has irked the Chinese government — which clearly feels the slight.
Then there is the matter of personal boycotts. Personal? In a Washington Post column, published on December 28, Charles Lane suggested that ordinary citizens boycott the Beijing Games by not tuning in. By not watching them on television. We might thereby teach corporations “a lesson in the costs of collaboration with the Chinese regime.”
Perhaps I could take a brief detour — not too far off the road — to tell a personal story. Some years ago, I decided I would boycott products from China. I had heard too much testimony about slave labor in China. For example, I had interviewed Charles Lee, a Falun Gong practitioner who had been imprisoned. While in prison, he was tortured, of course — this is routine in police states — and he was also made to work. He manufactured Christmas lights, for the U.S. market. He also made Homer Simpson bedroom slippers. You put your foot where Homer’s mouth is.
The economic rise of China is one of the great stories of modern times. The Chinese were desperately poor, and now they are not. Thomas Sowell, the economist and philosopher, made this point to me about ten years ago. He said, “I grew up in an era when, if you didn’t eat your food, your mother would say, ‘There are children starving in China.’” Now, however, “something like a fourth of Chinese adults are overweight, which was utterly unthinkable at one time.” So, “that’s really a great humanitarian story.”
I could not agree more. I wish the Chinese, and everyone else, nothing but prosperity. But on the matter of my personal boycott: How could I determine which products came from free labor and which from slave? Which came from legitimate business, so to speak, and which from a gulag camp?
Telling no one, I started a private little boycott. It was a matter of conscience. A day or two later, it rained. I needed an umbrella. I went to one store. All the umbrellas were made in China. I went to another store. Same. Dripping wet, I went to a third store. Same. I bought an umbrella.
Will you watch the Beijing Olympics? I would understand, if so. I love the Olympics. Always have, since childhood. The athletes are individuals. They also form national teams. This is independent of the host city or country.
But I don’t think I’ll watch. As Teng Biao and Hu Jia wrote in 2007, “. . . flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.” (And they wrote this in a less oppressive period for China.)
In 2014, Ethan Gutmann published his book The Slaughter, which is about organ harvesting and other atrocities in China. In my review, I wrote,
His findings, his book, must be ignored, if life is to go on — if business with China is to continue as usual. We have a psychological need to see China as a normal country (and maybe a material need too, given commercial relations). We take vacations in China, as we do in France or Argentina. We send our young people to study in Beijing, as we send them to Dublin or Florence. We work in Shanghai, as we work in London or Tokyo. . . . A state visit from Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao or Xi Jinping is no different from a visit by the Canadian prime minister, except grander.
It is my personal belief that the Olympic Games should not be held in a police state. Any of them. Lots of countries are not police states. Pick one of them.
In 2003, I moderated a session on sports at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This was a dinner, with remarks and discussion. Many prominent figures from the sports world were in attendance. In the course of the evening, I asked, “Does anyone think the Olympic Games should not be held in police states?” Probably a fair number did, but only one person raised her hand — the wife of one of the main participants. If I remember correctly, and I believe I do, she was the daughter of Holocaust survivors.