Frosty games: The Paralympics in Beijing ended on Sunday with the closing ceremony.
Foto: imago images/Matic Klansek
“I wish you all success and good luck. Thanks very much. Peace!” Andrew Parsons shouted at the Beijing stadium on Friday last week. However, the television audience in the host country, China, was not able to catch all of what the President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said. The last word in Parsons’ speech in English – peace – was not properly translated by the interpreter.
It fit the picture of “Beijing 2022”: Officially, the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Chinese capital took place under the motto “Together for a Shared Future”. But behind the appearance of the sports party for international understanding, a lot has happened that has little to do with peace and community. In the host country China, the first thing that catches the eye is the concentration camps in the north-west, where mainly Uyghurs are held. Added to this is the oppression of the people in Tibet and various human rights violations throughout the country, including freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
And then just two weeks ago the government of Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine. The Olympic Truce – which was signed by every member state of the United Nations shortly before the start of the Games and calls for peace in the world until seven days after the end of the Paralympics – has thus been broken. And the Chinese government, as the Olympic host, has not yet distanced itself from the Russian government – so it obviously tolerates the war. Has sport lost a large part of its normative power as a result?
On the one hand, the big sports institutions have hardly had a reputation to lose, Pierre Thielbörger points out. The professor of international law at the Ruhr University in Bochum and the Hertie School in Berlin says: »I believe that the associations behind these events are more private institutions. They can be persuaded to issue statements. But at their core, they are shaped by third-party interests and heavily influenced by cash flows.«
In other words, organizations such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee or the world football association Fifa would never have been primarily based on criteria such as human or international law anyway. On the other hand, the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine is a moment of truth: “It’s an opportunity to rethink their own practices. When you consider that Fifa and the IOC have awarded events to Russia, China and Qatar, you can ask how important human rights were to them, for example.«
At least the International Olympic Committee and the IPC now seem to be waking up. IOC President Thomas Bach released a statement on Friday that said, among other things: “We will continue to hold accountable the individuals and organizations responsible for this war and the break with the Olympic Truce. Therefore, no sporting events should take place on the territories of the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus.« Nor should any national or state symbols of these countries be shown at Olympic Movement events in the future. And also: “We will not fall into the trap of the cheap argument that this is a politicization of sport that goes against the Olympic Charter, which demands political neutrality.”
And the International Paralympic Committee writes on request by email: “The IPC will convene an Extraordinary Assembly in 2022 to vote on whether compliance with the Olympic Truce will become a condition of membership and whether membership of the Russian Paralympic Committee and the Belarusian Paralympic Committee will be suspended or terminated.« The IPC will not hold any events in Russia or Belarus until further notice.
It’s a clear change of course. After all, Russia’s breaches of the Olympic truce in 2008 and 2014, when Georgia was attacked and Crimea annexed, had no consequences. For 2014, Russia was even given the right to host the Winter Games in Sochi. Now the question arises what else follows. If not only international law, but also human rights are important for the big sports institutions, then a game should not be awarded to a country like China again.
Yet Russia may not remain the only country for which agreements such as the Olympic Truce are proving to be too onerous. During the Beijing Games, Yan Jiarong, spokeswoman for the local organizing committee, said, “I would like to emphasize that there is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.« China’s head of state Xi Jinping has already announced several times that China would annex the democratically and independently governed Taiwan by force if necessary.
Xi also published a manifesto in February together with Russia’s head of state, Putin, who was the only high-ranking guest of state at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games. It speaks of a »redistribution of power in the world«. With the war in Ukraine, global attention suddenly shifted from Chinese politics to Russian politics – which initially may have helped rather than damaged China’s reputation in the world. The Paralympic Games in particular – especially with their emotional images of inclusion – turned into a PR show for China’s one-party state.
However, the Chinese role in world sport could sooner or later be questioned – namely when the long-announced incorporation of Taiwan becomes acute. Until then, there seems to be the following new rules for world sport: One insists on compliance with international law, which is intended to secure international peace. However, there is no interference in human rights, which are mostly respected or violated within a state.
