The Economist this week asked “Will countries boycott China’s Olympics in 2022?“, concluding that “if an Olympic boycott movement gains momentum, it may be due as much to China’s behavior abroad as to its abuses at home.” It’s a different take to most of the articles we’ve seen in recent weeks, but wraps in some of the other elements going on, of which there is more below.
Weekly Roundup
- Olympic test events get underway
- Nike Xinjiang update
- 2021 World University Games postponed to 2022
- US ice hockey moves suggests NHL players will return to Olympics
- Joint Korean train ride proposed
- Boycott threats from around the world
- Other features and stories in the build-up to Beijing 2022
Olympic Test Events Kick Off
In lieu of the cancelled test event program at the end of last year, Beijing Olympic organizers this week begun 10 days of testing at five venues, including hockey, speed skating, figure skating and curling, with five Olympic and two Paralympic disciplines being tested. As expected, all athletes are Chinese because of travel restrictions – with more than 700 athletes and officials involved in total – although it’s possible that international athletes may be allowed to compete in some of the other test events later in the year.
The test program has been called “Experience Beijing”, but if the below pictures of the Mixed Zone, where reporters interview athletes after their events, are any guide, the experience next year could be quite a different experience to a usual Olympics.
Nike Weathers the Storm
Last week’s newsletter brought news on the backlash that international brands were facing in China after statements they had published on forced labor issues in Xinjiang sparked consumer boycotts online. While H&M continues to feel the pain – with 20 out of roughly 500 stores in China having been closed – boycotts against the main sports brands involved, including Nike and Adidas, are “losing steam“, with the South China Morning Morning Post saying:
Nike and Adidas also appeared to be trading as normal in China on Sunday. The brands could still be found on major Chinese online platforms such as Taobao and JD.com despite some web users calling for a complete boycott of all the brands involved in the Xinjiang cotton controversy.
The paper also said that a sale offering Nike shoes for 699 yuan (US$107) at the brand’s online store in Tmall attracted 350,000 subscribers and the product sold out instantly. Additionally, the China Football Association has “internally” condemned Nike for its stance on Xinjiang cotton, but has not ended its 10-year contract with the sportswear company. with Nike, because the ties are simply too deep. Meanwhile Chinese sportswear firm – and Beijing 2022 Official Partner – Anta has pulled out of the Better Cotton Initiative in order to use Xinjiang-sourced cotton instead, meaning that the IOC may well face scrutiny on yet another front.
Chengdu World University Games Postponed
Late on Friday this week came the news that had been foreshadowed in the previous days: the 2021 World University Games, originally scheduled to start on August 18, have been postponed until 2022. Regular readers will know that I have highlighted these Games in Chengdu as a key marker to watch, to see how Beijing plans to handle the influx of thousands of overseas visitors – athletes, coaches, officials and (hopefully) spectators – next February for the Winter Olympics. That potential clue has now evaporated, because I don’t foresee Beijing doing the same and pushing the Olympics back by a year. It was more to see what the arrangements would be with quarantine, bubbles, and other travel and COVID-related restrictions for the participants.
The whole affair was looking shaky from the time a letter leaked from the US delegation on March 25 saying that the Games had been cancelled (see above Twitter thread for more details). A statement on world governing body FISU’s Weibo account the next day said there had been a “misunderstanding” and that the circulating letter should not be regarded as official. I then reached out to the US side and they sent me a clarification that said that discussions were still ongoing between FISU and the organizing committee in Chengdu. Then, on April 2 came the official news of the postponement, with the reason provided as the “global COVID-19 situation and international travel restrictions at present”.
The official statement says that “the FISU Executive Committee felt the likely improvements in the public health situation over the next year would be such that an event in 2022 would be considerably more likely to offer the formative experience that FISU aims to deliver.” However, it is unclear how much things will have improved by the Beijing Olympics, leaving a lot of unanswered questions for now.
NHL Players Set to Return in Beijing?
The US men’s ice hockey team is one step closer to taking shape after Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman was named general manager of the team for Beijing 2022, with Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin acting as his assistant. This is relevant for several reasons: firstly, the US had previously said it would wait until NHL participation is confirmed before announcing any staff, so this announcement suggests things are moving in the right direction after NHL players missed the 2018 Olympics. The NHL and the players provisionally agreed to let players play in the Olympics in last year’s return-to-play Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), but that alone doesn’t guarantee participation.
But with the US now one step closer to playing in Beijing, we are also one step closer to some dramatic US vs China and Canada vs China showdowns in the group stage – read this “51 Weeks To Go” update for more details. I spoke to a coach close to China’s Olympic hockey program who believes that a team full of NHL players could “comfortably” beat their Chinese counterparts by a score of 100-0 (and, no, that’s not a typo). Meanwhile, given the context of China’s current relations with both Canada and the US (see below for more), one Chinese hockey executive told me the North Americans would be desperate to come to China to crush their opponents on Chinese ice. Things could get messy…
Joint Korean Train Ride
South Korea’s unification minister Lee In-young said this week his dream is to send his country’s athletes to the 2022 Beijing Winter Games using a train that goes via North Korea – picking up North Korean athletes on the way. Time is running out for Lee to put this plan into action, but he says he thinks the “door is still open for dialogue and cooperation”.
If agreed, the train’s journey would be: depart Seoul Station –> border station of Dorasan –> cross the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) –> Pyongyang –> Sinuiju (on the North Korea/China border) –> Beijing. But there’s a catch: even if you get Kim Jong-un to sign off on this, the final decision on whether the train can pass the DMZ rests not with the Koreans, but with the US Forces Korea commander.
It might sounds a crazy idea, but given that the two Koreas marched under a united flag at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and the women’s ice hockey team had players from both sides of the border, it may not be too far fetched after all. Also this week, Seoul sent a proposal to the IOC to co-host the 2032 Summer Olympics with Pyongyang, even though Brisbane has already been designated as the “preferred host”.
Boycott Watch
A new poll shows that a majority of Canadians (54%) think Canada should boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics, down 1 pp from a poll conducted two weeks earlier. Two academics argue that A Boycott of Beijing 2022 Will Do Little to Deter China, because authoritarians love the Olympics. Ambassador David Scheffer wants to depoliticize the Olympics by moving them to a permanent, neutral location, while this Indian commentator wants to cancel them once and for all.
It’s not all negative, though: US former Olympic wrestling champion Dan Gable believes the United States should not boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. See also: Olympic Officials Dismissed Beijing Games Human Rights Concerns In A Video Call [Buzzfeed News], How the Olympic Movement Can Resist Beijing’s Games [The Diplomat], Will countries boycott China’s Olympics in 2022? [The Economist]
Other Stories and Links
- Mikaela Shiffrin is focused on the 2022 Beijing Olympics [New York Times]
- China earns 5 figure skating spots for Beijing 2022 in Stockholm worlds [Xinhua]
- Beijing 2022 posters highlight Chinese cultural heritage and Olympic spirit [Beijing 2022] (see below)
See also:
- 45 Weeks To Go: To Watch or Not To Watch?
- 46 Weeks To Go: Romney Speaks Out & Vaccine Spin
- 47 Weeks To Go: Vaccine Diplomacy & Fading Medal Hopes
- 48 Weeks To Go: Counter-Attacks & Paralympic Prep
- 49 Weeks To Go: Testing, Testing, Testing
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