Keep diplomats, not the athletes, from Olympics
To boycott or not to boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics — the China debate has begun.
While Canada tries to own the podium, can it disown the politics? Herewith, a primer on the history and reality of countries trying to take their political competition into the sporting arena, and moving sports into the political arena.
As the Star’s Asia correspondent a couple of decades ago, I watched up close as Beijing bid for the 2008 summer games that Toronto coveted. The Chinese officials I interviewed were polished and poised, and the world bought into the promise of the Middle Kingdom continuing to open up.
All these years later, with the 2022 winter games looming, China’s promised opening is closing rapidly. The world got a brief glimpse of how Beijing plays for keeps when it muzzled tennis star Peng Shuai for publicizing sexual misconduct by a top Communist Party official.
In the aftermath, we got an even closer look at the shifting tactics of the sporting world. The Women’s Tennis Association rallied to Peng’s defence — only to be outplayed by the International Olympic Committee, which helped the regime find a face-saving way out with Peng’s orchestrated appearances.
As the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai went viral, the sports star who had suddenly vanished was rapidly unbanned, if not quite unfettered. Now, sports columnists are pronouncing on the politics, while political columnists are weighing in on the sports.
Peng’s fate, of course, was quite unlike what befalls most Chinese who run afoul of the regime — and are promptly incarcerated, re-educated, disappeared, downgraded, degraded, placed under house arrest, held hostage or otherwise made an example of. Before Peng there was Jack Ma — the tech tycoon who had to lie low after overstepping — and before him there were countless others, from the Dalai Lama to all of Tibet, the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan, anyone, in short, who doesn’t play by China’s unOlympian rules.
As Canada discovered in the case of the “Two Michaels” (Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor) — ransomed for two years in retaliation for the detention of a Huawei executive facing extradition to America — China is quick to escalate but slow to negotiate. What to do?
First, we need a definition of what we’re talking about — and what we’re not. The serious debate about a boycott is at the diplomatic level — keeping dignitaries away from their seats in the VIP booths.
There is little appetite for barring athletes from competing on the playing field, because such boycotts achieve little at considerable cost. Grounding athletes is both a nonstarter and a never-ending escalation:
Most other countries will still go to China — and come home with even more medals in hand while our competitors are handcuffed — which means the show would go on regardless. Yet the boycotts would also go on and on, with China retaliating the next time.
At the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, the U.S. led a boycott to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which set the stage for a counterboycott by Communist-bloc athletes at the 1984 games in Los Angeles (the U.S. invaded Afghanistan years later). When Montreal hosted the 1976 Olympics, most African countries stayed away to protest sporting links with South African apartheid, but Canada carried on — and so did apartheid (Chinese athletes also stayed away that year in a dispute over who truly represented China).
If athletes’ boycotts can be a blunt instrument, a diplomatic snub seems like the path of least resistance. The question is how far down the path of estrangement countries are prepared to go given China’s transgressions.
Tempting as it is to demonize and isolate Beijing, we are not reliving a Soviet-era Cold War, which was a military standoff with no major economic or diplomatic linkages. The West cannot so easily decouple from its economic integration and environmental linkages with China as global warming looms.
In short, we need each other — not just to maintain peace and prosperity, but to save the planet. That China has made so many enemies, however, creates an opportunity for Canada to act in unison with other like-minded countries to send a message of disapproval without disengagement:
Australia has just complained bitterly about its citizens unjustly detained and a Chinese spy ship snooping near its economic zone. The Philippines protested sharply this month after a Chinese warship tried to block the resupply of Filipino marines on an outpost.
India suffered casualties last year when its soldiers were attacked along its Himalayan border with China.
But we need to act soon, for the pandemic has given China a facesaving way out by perhaps conjuring up safety protocols that could pre-empt any diplomatic boycotts. Xi Jinping, China’s all-powerful president, hasn’t left the country since the onset of COVID, so it would hardly be a loss of face if other world leaders also stayed home.
That’s why the diplomatic boycott must go further — with vice-presidents, viceregal representatives, prime ministers, cabinet ministers and ambassadors all keeping their distance. The message would be unmistakable and more sustainable.
It is in the job description of politicians to send signals. And it is the mission of ambassadors to be deployed as messengers — summoned home for consultations, or expelled as persona non grata.
But that is not the competition that athletes train for. They are taught to win games by playing sports — not politics.