Games under a cloud

With Tokyo 2020 now in the history books, tough questions about Beijing 2022 will start arriving in the International Olympic Committee’s inbox in their droves. Liam Morgan looks ahead to what will be a politically charged Winter Games.

The postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games had an added benefit for the International Olympic Committee.

Not only did it allow the organisation to protect its revenue and ensure the athletes were granted the stage they deserve - albeit in front of empty stands - but it also meant sceptical and critical eyes were diverted away from the next Games, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Instead of a year-and-a-half of criticism and questions over China’s human rights record, widely condemned in the west, the IOC will get away with a little more than six months of constant negative headlines.

There are, of course, those in the media and elsewhere who have done their best to keep Beijing 2022 and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, which some countries have decried as a genocide, in the limelight.

But the focus for the Olympic Movement, plunged into its worst crisis for decades because of the coronavirus pandemic, had been on Tokyo 2020 and organising an unprecedented Olympic Games.

Not any longer. Tokyo 2020 has been and gone, and Beijing 2022 is now firmly on the horizon.

In just over 100 days, the 2022 Winter Olympics will open in the Chinese capital, marking the beginning of the end of a seven-year journey since Beijing beat Almaty to the hosting rights at the 2015 IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur.

Last month, the official slogan of the Games - “Together for a Shared Future” - was unveiled by organisers.

Critics, however, have their own tagline for Beijing 2022: The “Genocide Games”.

There has been widespread condemnation of Beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang as well as its crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong and its policies towards Tibet and Taiwan.

China has been accused of suppression and of conducting a surveillance campaign

LIAM MORGAN CHIEF SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES

against Muslim ethnic groups, which allegedly includes mass internment, forced sterilisation, the separation of children from their families and forced labour.

Human rights groups allege more than one million Uyghurs have been placed in internment camps. A report from Human Rights Watch said they had been “arbitrarily detained in 300 to 400 facilities, which include ‘political education’ camps, pretrial detention centres, and prisons”.

The report claimed violations committed by China “include imprisonment or other deprivation of liberty in violation of international law; persecution of an identifiable ethnic or religious group; enforced disappearance; torture; murder; and alleged inhumane acts intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to mental or physical health, notably forced labour and sexual violence”.

Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, claims Beijing 2022 is “shaping up to be a triumphal Chinese communist spectacle in the snow”.

“Some of you have seen senior IOC leaders say that the Olympics are not political,” she said.

“We wish someone would tell that to the Chinese Government.”

The IOC, and its President Thomas Bach, have remained silent on what the west and other countries believe is happening in Xinjiang. Bach has never uttered the word “Uyghur”, even when directly questioned on the claims.

Those questions have been regularly dismissed by the IOC, which refused to discuss Beijing 2022 at a press conference in Tokyo. In March, Bach said the IOC was “not a super world Government” when asked for a response to a coalition of human rights groups, who said the organisation was “willing to hold a genocidal Games”.

Intel, a TOP sponsor of the IOC, is on record agreeing with those groups.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the chair of the IOC’s Coordination Commission for Beijing 2022, said the IOC was “sensitive” to the issues raised but said it could not act as the “Central Government of the world”.

“The world is a very complex place, there are different political systems and sensitivities, and things that are evil in one part of the world might be considered heaven in another depending on culture and many other things,” Samaranch told insidethegames.

“The IOC is not the UN or anything like that. There are many other organisations that deal with the world order.

“We cannot take that responsibility, and we cannot be forced or pushed into trying to punish one or another depending on the views of another from the other part of the political spectrum.

“We are very, very attentive to protecting the human rights issues within the perimeter of what the Olympics mean pre, during and after the Games, but it is a little far-fetched that politicians around the world try to use the Olympics to push their political ideas or denounce what they consider to be wrongdoing in other countries.

“These human rights groups have their truth and information, and they should take that to the right forums, like the UN or their own Governments, and tell them to use their political power and influence to try and stop whatever they think is happening there and expose it.

“This is a political football that goes from one country to another, and I am sure you can find many parts of the world where they disagree with what we think is common practice in the western world.

“It is very easy to think what you are thinking and the way you are living is the only righteous way to see things…but there is a very complex world with many cultures and there is never only one truth.”

At a recent meeting of the IOC Executive Board, Bach was keen to tout the body’s work in addressing what he called a “humanitarian situation” by helping athletes escape Taliban-run Afghanistan.

So, I asked Bach whether the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang also constituted a humanitarian issue and suggested the IOC had largely ignored it. “The responsibility of the IOC…is to take care of humanitarian issues within the Olympic community,” Bach said.

“This is what we are doing in the case of Afghanistan. The Olympic Games are about non-discrimination, where everybody enjoys the same rights and where we bring the athletes of the world together in a peaceful competition.

“We are sending this positive message of peaceful competition, of non-discrimination, of everybody respecting everybody to the world from the Olympic Games regardless of where they take place.”

The answer was typical of the IOC, which is conveniently selective when it comes to deciding on when to intervene in political issues.

“IOC President Bach keeps winning gold medals for selectivity and obfuscation,” said Dr. Sophie Richardson, the China director at HRW.

“Invoking the Olympic Charter and using its influence when doing so makes the IOC look heroic, while straining to avoid using that same influence when doing so could bring relief to people enduring crimes against humanity.

Beijing 2022 has been dubbed "The Genocide Games" by human rights protesters. Photo: Getty Images

LIAM MORGAN CHIEF SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES

“In doing so he sullies his own lofty notion of an ‘Olympic community.’”

The human rights allegations, which Beijing denies, have led to calls ranging from a diplomatic boycott to moving the Games out of China.

A full athlete boycott is about as likely as the IOC acknowledging what is occurring in Xinjiang and would be counterproductive. But the debate is nevertheless a key example of a dilemma competitors face when participating at events in countries with contentious human rights records.

While it would be a stretch to suggest they are complicit by competing - they have no say in where the Olympics are held - it is an issue some of the world’s top competitors are all too aware of.

“The Olympics is big, and it’s something that you shoot for, and you don’t want to miss it,” double Olympic Alpine skiing champion Mikaela Shiffrin said earlier this year.

“You certainly don’t want to be put in the position of having to choose between human rights, like morality versus being able to do your job, which on the other hand can bring light to some issues or can actually bring hope to the world at a very difficult time.”

Samaranch added: “The Olympic Games is the only opportunity in the world, that I can think of, where you can take people from China, people from US, Canada, Australia, middle of Africa, all sorts of cultures, religions and political systems, and put them together in the Village to share life, joy and sport like brothers,” he said.

“And you are really asking me to risk that very valuable thing for humanity because you want to enforce and advance your political cause? Sorry, I will resist.

“I resent the possibility of a diplomatic boycott because I would like everybody to come and enjoy the Olympics, without endorsing any political system.

“I understand that people use this amplifying force of the Games when they come to push and advance their own programmes, ideas and their view of the world, but we have to resist that otherwise what we have would disappear.”

Human rights is far from the only concern as Beijing 2022 approaches. The COVID-19 pandemic looms large over the Games, just as it did in the Japanese capital a few months ago, and the restrictions that will be in place are set to be far tougher than for Tokyo 2020.

The IOC is due to publish the “playbooks” - the documents which outline the strict rules for all participants at the Games - for Beijing 2022 by the end of October. Bach has said large parts will be copy and pasted from Tokyo 2020, with certain areas “tailored to the COVID-19 situation” in China.

That situation has already caused problems for the IOC. Not only have traditional Olympic test events been abandoned, but major competitions scheduled to be held in China are still being cancelled far too regularly for the IOC’s liking, including one, the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, that had been due to take place just two weeks before Beijing 2022 opens.

“It is of interest and concern to us,” Samaranch says. “We don’t yet know how restrictive these measures will be, but they will reflect the culture in China.

“We are confident that China is going to do everything that is necessary to make everybody safe and is not going to do things that are not necessary. But we have to be pretty obedient and respectful of the decisions made by the health authorities.

“We do encourage everybody to come vaccinated and there will be a strong, strong push for everyone to be fully protected. Vaccination is the main weapon to keep everyone safe and we will push for that to happen so we get as close as possible to 100 per cent.”

At the end of September, it was announced that Chinese fans will be allowed at the Games, and that everyone attending will be part of a “closed-loop management system” that permits travel between approved venues using only official transport.

Those who are not fully vaccinated will have to serve a 21-day quarantine period upon arrival, before being allowed to enter this system.

Where China has not struggled is venues for the Games, which are due to open on February 4 and conclude on February 20. Organisers have claimed all facilities in the three clusters - Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou - are close to completion and will be finished by the end of this year.

Attention will now turn to fine-tuning preparations for the Games, with Beijing poised to become the first city to host both the Winter and Summer editions.

“The Organising Committee has delivered much faster than expected and promised and to a higher quality than they said they would,” Samaranch said.

“This level of readiness and delivery has been done ahead of schedule despite COVID-19. The Games readiness is 100 per cent and it has been that way for quite some time.”

If you listen to Beijing 2022 organisers, and the IOC, everything is rosy in China. For those on the receiving end of the country’s alleged human rights abuses, it is anything but.

The International Olympic Committee want sport to take centre stage in the Chinese capital but hard questions will not go away. Photo: Getty Images