Tag Archive for: Olympic Games

Breaking eggs: Australia’s Beijing boycott a good step but the real power lies with athletes

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done the right thing: he’s announced Australia will join a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.

While it couldn’t be taken for granted, this wasn’t really a hard decision for the Australian government.

The government won’t need to turn off ministers’ flight arrangements to Beijing. And it would simply make no sense for Australian government officials to be seen celebrating Beijing hosting this major international sporting event at time when Australian citizens like newsreader Cheng Lei and writer Yang Hengjun are detained in China and Beijing is using its trade relationship with us as a weapon.

Morrison has joined US President Joe Biden’s diplomatic boycott because of the Chinese government’s large-scale human rights abuses against its own citizens in places like Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and more broadly through arbitrary arrest, silencing and detention of other Chinese citizens and of foreigners in mainland China.

Other governments are likely to join, but the real power lies with the athletes themselves. That may have dawned on Chinese officials involved in stage-managing this peak prestige event for Xi Jinping.

Biden’s decision was probably in the ‘must do’ bucket for his administration, given human rights are at the centre of its foreign policy. That’s why Xi had tried to stop him from making it. At their recent summit, Xi told Biden that China would ‘safeguard its own sovereignty, security and development’ and the US should ‘carefully handle issues related to this’ and not impinge on China’s ‘core interests’. Xi was saying the US needed to pay this price for future summits to be realised. And Chinese officials threatened the US with ‘countermeasures’ if a boycott occurred.

Biden has clearly refused Xi’s instruction and terms of engagement and hasn’t been cowed by Beijing’s threats.

For Australia, further threats against trade risk damaging China’s economy more than ours (as we’ve seen already with coal), but the prospect should motivate every Australian company to continue to diversify away from the China market.

The diplomatic boycott is the right decision for Australia and any country that values human rights. We could take the extra step, though, of not having our athletes fly the Australian flag—like Malcolm Fraser did for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when the Australian team marched under the Olympic flag.

In some ways, it’s a harder test for other governments, such as Germany’s new coalition. There, the Greens, who now hold the foreign ministry, have spoken about Germany taking a clearer, stronger line on human rights and China—for the same reasons Biden announced the US boycott. Now’s a moment to see if this matters from the position of government and not just while campaigning.

New Zealand took the odd decision of telling Beijing back in October that it wouldn’t send ministerial-level representatives, but saying publicly now that ‘a range of factors’ were behind the decision, which was ‘mostly to do with Covid’. That ‘depurposes’ the decision, which should be about values and principles.

The question that probably needs asking is not who joins the boycott, but who doesn’t. This a test about whether a government can just look away from the nature of the Chinese regime because of the fear of economic and political consequences.

Here, there’s no refuge in Olympic values and sport being beyond politics. For the Chinese Communist Party’s leaders, the 2022 Winter Olympics is all about politics and prestige—projecting an image of a successful, strong China at the centre of global events and drawing in the world’s governments and leaders to celebrate that success and power, all centred on Xi.

If you doubt that China’s leaders think sport matters to politics, there’s the case of tennis star Peng Shuai and her silencing for having the courage to tell the world that a former member of the CCP’s Politburo sexually abused her.

Peng understood the consequences of speaking about this in mainland China, saying: ‘Even if I’m an egg throwing myself at a rock, even if I’m a moth flying at a flame, courting my own destruction, I will still speak the truth of us.’

She’s been controlled by Chinese authorities from the moment her words made it to international media organisations, to protect the party by hiding inconvenient truths.

Which raises something more important than what any particular national government does or doesn’t do about the jarring gap between the vision of the Olympics unifying humanity and the reality of the Chinese state’s exercise of power over anyone it has within its jurisdiction.

What might athletes choose to do before, during and after the Games? There are some parallels here with the response to forced labour. Forced labour from Xinjiang has found its way into the supply chains of many major international companies, from clothing firms to big tech outfits. And consumers and customers of these companies have been using their buying power to push for change.

This ‘people power’ may turn out to be more influential on company structures, operations and plans for engaging with China than even concerted policy from groups of governments. In combination, things will move more.

Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee has done its best to minimise any connections being made between Peng and sport, and China more generally. Their way to do this is to profess a ‘person-centred’ approach—code for ‘move on, there’s nothing to see here’. So, Biden’s boycott decision is awkward news for the IOC message managers.

Despite the IOC’s efforts, it’s the athletes who matter. Tennis has some lessons for Winter Olympic sports. We’ve already seen the Women’s Tennis Association and international tennis stars speak up in support of Peng—iconic figures like Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert-Lloyd and men’s world number one Novak Djokovic.

Imagine the effect of simple gestures of solidarity with the victims of abusive Chinese state power from numerous individual athletes and even some teams at and after the Beijing Games. Not much has to be done to be graphic and noteworthy in that hypercontrolled, hypersensitive environment.

Xi and other occupants of Beijing’s  Zhongnanhai leadership compound already see pictures of Winnie the Pooh as dangerous indicators of rebellion against CCP rule, and China’s 1.4 billion people are adept at reading political signs in arcane images and word choices. Like the Pooh pictures, these take off as viral memes until spotted and censored by authorities, with occasional renewed outbreaks.

A cap with a picture of an egg and a rock on it would be enough to evoke Peng’s allegations and troubles. An egg on a press conference table would do the same. A hand over an athlete’s own mouth during a press conference would bring to mind the three wise monkeys and send an unmistakable message about censorship, silencing and looking away. There are many memes that motivated minds can make, use and have spotted by audiences across the world.

How odd that pictures on caps and elliptic references to fables could so disturb the powerful.

IOC rules adopted for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics discourage protests during actual events or medal ceremonies but recognise athletes’ freedom to express personal views in press conferences and on social media. Theoretically, the IOC could act against an athlete or athletes for breaches—just as it did by banning two US athletes who protested against racism at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

So, Beijing has the choice to pressure and intimidate foreign athletes to stop them from saying anything or censor them live if they do so. Some national Olympic team organisations may try to help. Beijing also has the ‘nuclear option’—the threat of arbitrary arrest is real, just as the Australian government’s travel advisory for China warns, and so is an earlier trip to the airport than an athlete planned.

But think beyond March next year, when the Olympics are over. The stories of odd Chinese government and security apparatus efforts to manage dangerous ideas during the Games will simply be out of Beijing’s control. It’s always the cover-up, not the crime, that makes a story.

And would the IOC really want to act against individual athletes over these principles and beliefs?

Maybe we’ll see principled athletes apply the Olympic values of ‘excellence, friendship and respect’ in ways we can admire and which give comfort to those under Beijing’s authoritarian control.

Maybe this will be through subtle but unmistakable references and symbols that we can all recognise and celebrate.

I’m interested to see which governments join Australia and the US. But perhaps government leaders and officials not showing up is just a precursor to something larger, more human and more creative.

Who’d want to be a censor or minder having to show Xi the latest cartoon, cap or confiscated boiled egg?

Japan’s Olympic-sized Covid risk

In 2020, Asia—especially East Asia—was often touted as a model of effective pandemic response. While Western countries endured harsh lockdowns and soaring infection and death rates, Asian countries largely kept the coronavirus under control. But the tables have turned, with East Asia now lagging far behind the United States and Europe on vaccinations. This does not bode well for the  Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

As of 15 June, Japan had the second worst vaccination record among the 38 OECD countries, with 20.9 doses per 100 people. Contrast that with the United Kingdom’s 106.1 doses per 100 people, and the US rate of 93.3 doses per 100.

Why is Japan lagging so far behind the rest of the OECD? For starters, the government was late in securing purchase agreements with vaccine producers, not least because the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was reluctant to provide rapid emergency approval to the new vaccines.

Japan has a history of controversy over vaccine side effects. For example, the government approved human papillomavirus vaccines in 2009 and listed them for regular administration in 2013. Just two months later, the government withdrew its recommendation to use the vaccine in girls, after a series of alleged adverse post-immunisation events stoked public concerns about the vaccine’s safety.

During the Covid-19 crisis, authorities insisted that a clinical trial for vaccines be conducted in Japan before approval, even though large-scale randomised controlled trials, involving more than 40,000 people, had already been undertaken elsewhere. The Japanese clinical trial provided little useful information: it involved only 160 people and researchers checked only for antibodies, not asymptomatic infections. Yet it delayed the immunisation drive by three months.

Another obstacle for Japan’s vaccination program is the rule that only medical doctors and nurses may administer doses. The US began with a similar rule, but municipalities quickly expanded eligibility to include dentists, veterinarians, emergency medical technicians and clinical laboratory technicians. In New York, pharmacists, dental hygienists, podiatrists, other health workers and medical students are eligible to administer jabs.

So, while New Yorkers return to pre-pandemic life, Japanese are facing a new surge of Covid-19 infections and lockdowns. On 25 April, the government declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and the Osaka area—the third since the pandemic began. The state of emergency—which requires, for example, that restaurants close at 8:00 p.m. and prohibits the sale of alcohol—was subsequently expanded, and now encompasses 10 prefectures. Eight more are under a softer lockdown.

While the state of emergency is scheduled to be lifted on 20 June, this may have to be pushed back, given the painfully slow decline in coronavirus infections. Even if it is lifted as expected, there’s no guarantee that another wave will not demand new lockdowns soon. With the Olympics scheduled to be held from 23 July to 8 August, and the Paralympics from 24 August 24 to 5 September, such a wave could be more like a tsunami.

During the games, a significant share of Tokyo’s medical resources will be diverted away from the Covid-19 response to meet the needs of competitors and their supporting staff. A huge number of people from all over the world will travel to Tokyo—potentially bringing dangerous coronavirus variants with them. It should come as no surprise that 83% of Japan’s residents oppose holding the games as scheduled.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration has attempted to assuage people’s fears, pledging to bring in additional medical resources and keep all visitors in a ‘bubble’ that covers hotels, event facilities and transportation between them. But opposition parties accuse the government of failing to produce a convincing safety plan. And, after more than a year of strict rules and sharp reversals, the public is unconvinced. It doesn’t help that, just 36 days before the opening ceremony, the government still has not decided whether to allow spectators into the Olympic stadium.

The Suga government’s best hope for regaining the public’s trust is to scale up its vaccination drive rapidly. This will require, among other things, expanding significantly the number of people permitted to administer doses. But even if Japan follows the trajectory of the US, which was in the position Japan is in today four months ago, it will not achieve widespread vaccination until about mid-October—long after the Olympic and Paralympic athletes have gone home.

Without herd immunity (or something close to it), hosting the Tokyo games is a risky bet for Japan. Suga could win big: if the games are a success and infections don’t rise, he’s more likely to be re-elected as the leader of his Liberal Democratic Party, at which point he might even call a snap election. But that won’t change the fact that he’s been willing to gamble with people’s health, livelihoods and lives.

Moon Jae-in’s Olympic realpolitik

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has made a good start to the New Year. Not only did he broker an agreement to bring North Korea to the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang; he also convinced US President Donald Trump that doing so was in fact Trump’s idea.

With his Olympic coup, Moon has both managed the North Korean threat to the Games and avoided any backlash from the United States. Still, the agreement that North and South Korea reached in the border village of Panmunjom last month is unlikely to lead to renewed nuclear-disarmament talks.

Rather, once the Games are over, the North will likely use the current diplomatic opening to probe in other areas unrelated to its nuclear program, which, in turn, will raise a set of trying and familiar issues for the US–South Korea relationship.

After all, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un certainly wasn’t motivated by a genuine New Year’s resolution when he called for better relations with South Korea on 1 January. On the contrary, his gambit was in keeping with the North’s longstanding policy of trying to weaken the US–South Korean alliance.

In reaching out to the South, Kim wants to demonstrate that the North can live peacefully with its neighbours, even as it maintains a nuclear arsenal. More broadly, Kim is seeking to normalise the North’s status as a wannabe, self-identified nuclear power in the eyes of the world.

Achieving these goals, Kim hopes, will drive a wedge between the US and South Korea. He knows that Trump’s approval ratings in South Korea are far lower than his already-abysmal ratings in the US, so he is exploiting that fact to facilitate his nuclear-normalisation objective. And, of course, the North is always looking for opportunities to win relief from sanctions.

Moon, for his part, has handled Kim’s ‘peace offensive’ well. North Korea’s Olympians and cheerleaders will undoubtedly be greeted enthusiastically when they arrive by train in the South, and the crowd will roar its approval when athletes from the two countries march into the stadium under the same banner.

To be sure, the North Koreans will think they were invited to participate in the Games not in spite of their nuclear program, but because of it. From their perspective, South Korea seems to have developed a newfound respect—or fear—of what the North is becoming. And participation in the Olympics suggests that international isolation is a temporary fact of life, a toll on the road to fully recognised nuclear status. They might think that, soon enough, other countries will be lining up to offer the North a seat at the diplomatic table.

But Moon has made it clear that his government will not be seduced by the Olympic spirit. If North Korea’s leaders expect participation in the Games to lead to recognition of their country’s nuclear status, they will be waiting a long time. The South’s goal is to host a successful Olympic Games, after a year in which many countries questioned whether it was safe to send a delegation at all. Once the Games are over, the North will be facing a long winter of opprobrium and isolation.

That means the North would be wrong to assume that the South will beg it to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex, one of the most ambitious North–South cooperative efforts of the 2003–2009 détente era. Moon has shown no interest in such gestures. He understands that unilateral concessions will not improve South Korea’s position vis-à-vis the other regional and global powers reacting to North Korean behaviour.

Like the Saudis and others before him, Moon knows that the way to Trump’s heart is through his ego. But he also must manage the broader front of countries that are participating in historically strong sanctions against an abhorrent state. In that respect, Moon’s first big test will come immediately after the Olympics, when the South Korea – US Combined Forces Command will decide on its plans for future military exercises.

North Korea, of course, will object to such exercises, as it always does. But so, too, might China and Russia, which will accuse the US of reversing the Olympic thaw. Even so, a military alliance without exercises is like an orchestra without instruments. Moon most likely understands this, just as he realises that the importance of his country’s relationship with the US, despite its headaches and complexities, dwarfs that of any of its other partnerships around the world.

At the end of the day, a progressive South Korean government such as Moon’s always must demonstrate to the public that it can manage and safeguard the US relationship. So far, Moon has done that.