China: An American-born Olympic hero
She may have been born and raised in San Francisco, but Eileen Gu is China’s own superstar, said Wang Qi and Cui Fandi in the Global Times (China). The 18-year-old freestyle skier captured gold in the women’s freeski big air event after choosing to compete for China, her mother’s native land, rather than the U.S., where she still lives. Gu’s final run “made Chinese spectators breathless” as she pulled off a double cork 1620, spinning four and a half times while rotating twice in mid-air. It was the first gold in snow sports that China, which is not a traditional Winter Olympics powerhouse, has ever won. “This is the best moment in my life,” Gu said, thanking the Chinese audience for its support. Gu has received adoration from Chinese social media users, including “new-era Chinese teens” who relate to her simultaneous embrace of her Chinese roots and her Western cultural upbringing. It’s made Gu a commercial hit—she stands to earn more than $15 million in sponsorship deals from “about 30 domestic and foreign brands” that sponsor her.
Yet in the U.S., Gu is being attacked by jingoistic, right-wing talking heads, said John Gong in CGTN.com (China). Tucker Carlson aired a segment with fellow Fox News host Will Cain, who called Gu “ungrateful” and “shameful” for her decision to represent China. Cain then attacked Gu’s American corporate sponsors, accusing them of betraying the United States for Chinese riches. Of course, Gu’s sponsors also back U.S. athletes, and she’s not the only naturalized athlete competing for another country—even the
U.S. has team members born abroad. Yet the U.S. media “never fusses about them,” said Xia Wenxin in the Global Times. Some Americans adopt this “double standard” because, for them, only the West can win, and if the West loses a star, it’s not fair. Yet the U.S. became a global power “by attracting global talent,” so why shouldn’t China do the same? Criticizing Gu for choosing China is just another example of “American elites’ calculated snobbery.”
The world outside China doesn’t hate Eileen Gu, said James Matthey in News.com.au (Australia), but it’s deeply troubled by “her high-profile role in China’s propaganda war.” Gu has remained silent about China’s myriad human rights abuses, including the genocide of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. When Peng Shuai, the tennis star who dropped the game after accusing a high-level government official of sexual assault, appeared at the skiing final, Gu said she was grateful Peng was “happy and healthy and doing her thing again”—a strange way to describe someone who was forcibly silenced. These controversies make Gu “the perfect face of these Olympics,” said Bruce Arthur in the Toronto Star (Canada). The International Olympic Committee abetted Beijing in sweeping Chinese human rights abuses under the rug. That’s not the fault of Gu, a steely competitor with a “sweet ferocity” almost designed to insulate her from “bad-faith criticism.” But like it or not, she now “exists at the intersection of the world’s geopolitics.” And that’s “exactly where the IOC and Beijing want her to be.”