All posts by Mark Dreyer

46 Weeks To Go: Romney Speaks Out & Vaccine Spin

Senator Mitt Romney this week joined a long line of people with a public opinion on whether the Winter Olympics should go ahead in Beijing, concluding that they should, but coupled with an economic and diplomatic boycott. Elsewhere, China has stepped up its vaccine game, but – so far, at least – it’s a lot of spin over substance.

Weekly Roundup

  • Mitt Romney calls for “economic and diplomatic boycott”
  • Latest vaccine developments and implications for 2022
  • Boycott threats from around the world
  • Further fallout from IOC Session
  • Other features and stories in the build-up to Beijing 2022
Continue reading 46 Weeks To Go: Romney Speaks Out & Vaccine Spin

47 Weeks To Go: Vaccine Diplomacy & Fading Medal Hopes

China’s vaccine diplomacy took a twist this week with news emerging after this week’s virtual IOC Session that China has offered its vaccines to all participants of the next two Olympics – this summer in Tokyo and next February in Beijing. Well, “offered” is perhaps a touch generous, since IOC President Thomas Bach says the IOC will cover the costs. But already there has been some opposition…

Weekly Roundup

  • China roles out its vaccine diplomacy playbook
  • How well will China actually perform in 2022?
  • Boycott threats from around the world
  • Other features and stories in the build-up to Beijing 2022
Continue reading 47 Weeks To Go: Vaccine Diplomacy & Fading Medal Hopes

48 Weeks To Go: Counter-Attacks & Paralympic Prep

I usually try and start with something other than the boycott news, but there’s been a marked change in the conversation this week – namely that the counter narrative from Beijing has begun. Global Times editor Hu Xijin tested the waters a week ago, with the threat that foreign countries would be punished if they boycotted the Games. He’s no longer the sole voice, with plenty of opportunities for interviews provided by the ongoing Two Sessions, China’s most important annual political meetings – the NPC and CPPCC.

Weekly Roundup

  • Counter attacks from Beijing
  • Boycott threats from around the world
  • Paralympics 1 year to go
  • Chengdu Olympic hopes dashed
  • Other features and stories in the build-up to 2022
Continue reading 48 Weeks To Go: Counter-Attacks & Paralympic Prep

49 Weeks To Go: Testing, Testing, Testing

So the 2022 Olympic Games are happening, right? Well, COVID-19 is trending in the right direction globally and Beijing will also have to fend off the threat of a boycott (more of that later), but we should have a pretty good sense of where things stand by the summer.

I don’t actually think the Tokyo Olympics have much bearing on Beijing, although if Tokyo progresses as (currently) planned, it would be staggering to see Beijing subsequently called off. I’ve heard talk that if Tokyo is scrapped, then Beijing will be too, but personally I think a Tokyo cancellation would only make China even more determined to host their Games. So while Tokyo in August is a marker, I would look instead to what happens just a few days later with the Summer World University Games in Chengdu, scheduled to start on August 18. The last version in Naples, Italy, was a slightly scaled down affair, but Chengdu is due to be back at the level of 2017 (Taipei) and Gwangju (2015), which each hosted more than 11,000 athletes. So that should provide a solid indication of how China plans to cope with hosting thousands of athletes, international travel restrictions, quarantine, testing, vaccination requirements and all the other lovely things we now have to deal with.

Continue reading 49 Weeks To Go: Testing, Testing, Testing

50 Weeks To Go: Corporate Conundrums & Olympic Agendas

Erich Swatzerl from The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece this week entitled “2022 Beijing Olympic Games Loom as Test for Corporate Sponsors“, which neatly encapsulates not just the looming headaches for Olympic sponsors, but the current landscape for doing business in China. In fact, while the whole piece is worth a read, the sub-header pretty much says it all:

“Silence on human-rights issues risks alienating U.S. consumers; speaking up could earn the host nation’s ire.”

You could swap out “human-rights issues” for a host of other controversial topics du jour and the sentiment would remain, although increasingly this applies to global consumers, not just those in the US.

Nowhere has this been illustrated better than in the case of the NBA, with the “Morey Tweet” incident still dogging the league in China. That situation was particularly notable because it brought an international brand’s dealings in China into the mainstream consciousness for really the first time – and put the league in an impossible situation. Previously, if western brands had fallen afoul of Chinese keyboard warriors for using an incorrect map or making a geographical typo, they could issue a groveling apology – in Chinese only – and wait out the storm until another brand slipped up and took their place in the hot seat. Most people elsewhere in the world would have been none the wiser.

But’s that no longer the case.

Continue reading 50 Weeks To Go: Corporate Conundrums & Olympic Agendas

51 Weeks To Go: Boycotts & Hockey Fights

With 51 weeks to go until the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, we’re on the eve of the Lunar New Year here in China, which means we’re about to enter the Year of the Ox, but – perhaps more importantly – we are leaving the Year of the Rat behind. That’s because Rat years are often associated with disaster and bad luck – with the massive Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and COVID-19 being the two most obvious examples from the past two Rat years.

While Beijing has been marking the one-year countdown (see more below and last week’s recap), given that there’s been little sporting action to discuss, talk of a boycott has been gathering pace overseas. I’m not going to offer any thoughts on whether or not a boycott should happen – there are plenty of far more qualified people on both sides of the equation already doing that – but my own analysis of the evidence today is that a Beijing Olympics boycott won’t happen.

Quite simply, the Europeans, which includes a sizable number of major winter sports nations, don’t seem to be interested in a boycott, and, while opinion of China in the US – both among the public and government – appears to be at, or near, an historic low, a solo boycott could easily backfire on Washington and come across as a toothless protest from a petulant nation. Canada could conceivably join, though the situation there is complicated by the respective detentions of Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels, but there seems to be more excitement there about the prospective return of NHL players to the Olympics (see more below) than there is talk of a Beijing Olympics boycott.

Continue reading 51 Weeks To Go: Boycotts & Hockey Fights

Safe and simple: Beijing 2022’s message with 1 year to go

The countdown on the official Olympic site for the Beijing 2022 Winter Games shows 365 days to go, but, in Beijing itself, there’s little sign – or feeling – that the Olympics are coming into view.

That will all change, of course, but, for now, it’s all quiet on the eastern front. The reasons for that are obvious: Tokyo and COVID-19. The world’s Olympic focus is very much on Japan right now, with newly released pandemic guides just the latest in the PR campaign to insist that The Games Must Go On.

Continue reading Safe and simple: Beijing 2022’s message with 1 year to go

Memories of the 2008 Beijing Olympics – and what happened next

Ten years ago tonight, I had the privilege of witnessing one of the most dominant Olympic performances of our time, as Usain Bolt ran 9.69 in the men’s 100m final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But I nearly missed the race entirely – and much has changed in China’s sports scene over the ensuing decade.

Continue reading Memories of the 2008 Beijing Olympics – and what happened next

Introducing: Second Gear

As the first of a new series of podcasts (and, soon, videocasts/TV shows) that I’ll be hosting with Sean Henshelwood, Second Gear aims to be an unvarnished look at the Asian motorsport scene. For all the undoubted opportunities of the Asian market, it sometimes feels like the sport doesn’t get out of second gear – hence the name – so in addition to all the latest news and analysis, we’ll also be talking about what needs to be done to take the sport to the next level.

Issues discussed on this episode include:

  1. Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix:
  2. Liberty Media’s plans for a second Chinese race:
    • The issues with building a sustainable track in China capable of holding an F1 race
    • How soon could this realistically happen?
  3. Fernando Alonso announces plans to build 40 go kart tracks in China over the next five years:
    • Is it achievable?
    • Can it produce China’s first F1 star?

[Photo credit above: 6th GEAR]

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Why you should take headlines from China with a sack of salt

The headlines from China that make their way into the sports sections of western media very often contain errors, falsehoods and sometimes just downright lies. Two rules of thumb: if it sounds too good to be true, it is; and be very, very careful with numbers. Here’s a selection of recent stories that have stretched the truth in various ways… 

Continue reading Why you should take headlines from China with a sack of salt