San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Peng adds to China’s troubles
Olympics host unfit to everyone but IOC, it seems
The alarm bells that have been ringing for years over the Beijing Winter Olympics have become deafening.
The buildup of controversy over awarding yet another Olympics to Beijing has been years in the making. Suppression in Hong Kong, accusations of human rights crimes against the Uyghurs, military threats against Taiwan and the overall suppression of citizens’ rights and freedom of information have heightened concerns and turned up the heat on the International Olympic Committee.
On Thursday, President Biden said the United States is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Games, a largely symbolic statement that would not affect athletes’ participation. Human rights groups are calling for a commercial boycott.
But few could have predicted the twist those concerns have taken in recent days.
The saga of Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis star, has turned a spotlight on the Chinese government’s hardline approach to squelching dissent.
It’s not a great look to disappear a former Olympian just 11 weeks before the Games are set to begin. While the Women’s Tennis Association and its most prominent stars — Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert — are speaking out against China, the entity with the most leverage, the IOC, looks predictably ineffective and passive.
Here’s the background: Peng, a three-time Olympian and one of China’s biggest tennis stars, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used her verified social media account to accuse Zhang Gaoli, former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her three years ago.
The message was quickly deleted from the governmentcontrolled website. Since then, there has been no physical evidence of Peng. Online references to her have been deleted in China. Steve Simon, the
CEO of the WTA, demanded that China investigate the claims, threatened to stop doing business in China and said his organization has been unable to contact her.
This week, a hard-to-believe message was released by state-owned China Global Television. Claiming to be Peng, the message said the WTA’s statements about their concerns were not “verified” by her.
“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai . ... The news in that release, including the allegation of sexual assault, is not true. I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve just been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.” Simon, who has shown more backbone than the NBA and other sports entities in standing up to China, quickly suggested the stilted email was a fraud. Entities around the globe, including the United Nations, are expressing concern, while the Chinese Foreign Ministry continues to claim it is “not aware” of the situation that is making international headlines.
And what is the response from the IOC, the entity that is entrusted with the welfare of athletes while simultaneously being in bed with Beijing?
“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” an IOC spokesperson said. “We are in touch with the International Tennis Federation, who continue to monitor the situation.”
Way to stand up for a member of the “Olympic family.”
As usual the IOC is more concerned about protecting its business partner than the well-being of athletes or the integrity of sports. The IOC has billions at stake in the upcoming Olympics. The Chinese government wants a propaganda platform, similar to what it had at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. No rocking of the boat, please. Those 2008 Games were widely considered a propaganda machine, intent on assuring that the new China was an open and welcoming place. Thirteen years later, that will be the goal once again. Never mind that it didn’t work the first time. And skating and snowboarding and skiing are meant to provide a distraction from all those other story lines about China.
Look at the triple Axel! Ignore that “re-education” camp.
Of course, the IOC has a long history of pandering to dictatorships, dating to its cozy relationship with Hitler. In recent years, as it has struggled to find cities interested in bidding for the right to spiral into debt and upheaval and be stripped of self-governance, the IOC has come to increasingly rely on authoritarian regimes.
Russia’s Sochi Games in 2014 provided Vladimir Putin with a propaganda coup, one that — as it turned out — included extensive state-sponsored doping. All potential host cities for the 2022 Games, save for Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, embarrassingly dropped out.
The Olympics are an increasingly problematic exercise in today’s world, as witnessed by the farcical Tokyo Games. Forced unwillingly upon the Japanese public in the midst of a pandemic, they turned Tokyo into little more than a multibillion-dollar sound stage for NBC’s TV show.
Does the United States, scheduled to host the 2028 Games, have any moral authority that allows it to shame other Olympic hosts? With our increasing spread of misinformation, domestic terrorism, miscarriage of justice and suppression of rights, not really.
The issue at the moment is Beijing. And as Peng’s troubling situation illustrates, none of the athletes headed to China in February can believe that the IOC will protect them.