human rights violations? All lie”. Taiwan? “There is only one China.” The Beijing Games organizers are debunking the myth of “political neutrality” on the Olympic stage.
Madame Yan had heard enough – and within a few minutes finally destroyed the illusory world of the “political neutrality” of the Olympic Games, which the IOC had painstakingly built up. Reports on the “concentration camps” and “forced labor” in Xinjiang? All lie”. Democratic Taiwan? “There is only one China in the world” – and Taiwan is an “inseparable part” of it.
Three days before the closing ceremony in Beijing, Yan Jiarong, spokeswoman for the organizing committee BOCOG, firmly brushed aside the veil. Mark Adams, who represents the International Olympic Committee daily in front of the world press, could only react with the constantly repeated generalities. Yan proved who’s in charge of the bubble – and it’s not the IOC.
This often refers to the Charter and Rule 50.2, which prohibits athletes and all other participants in the Games from “political propaganda”. Adams described his colleague’s statements as “Madame Yan’s point of view” that was “not relevant” to the IOC. That’s what an explanation sounds like.
Double Olympic champion becomes clear
According to the owners of the games, the charter and the hosting contract also guarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the press. However, reporters from the Dutch TV channel “NOS” and the Japanese news agency Kyodo News, among others, experienced encroaching “authorities”. For Adam’s “individual cases” discussed with the BOCOG. consequences? Are not known.
The feared double Olympic champion Nils van der Poel, so the speed skating star held back with his opinion – until he was back in his native Sweden. Actually he didn’t want to say anything “because we still have a team in China”, but it was “extremely irresponsible” to have awarded the games to a country that violates human rights “so obviously”, he said at “Sportsbladet “.
Because of the “genocide” of the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, the US government and other allies are boycotting the Winter Games. “Our officials have already denied such misrepresentations and backed them up with a lot of evidence,” Yan said Thursday. Adams remained noncommittal: “We are very concerned about protecting human rights within our sphere, the Olympic Games.”
IOC spokesman also dodges on the subject of Taiwan
He also evaded the subject of Taiwan. There are “many perspectives on many things in the world. Our job is for the games to happen and their magic to work,” Adams said.
Taiwan feels threatened by China, Jhy Wey Shieh, the country’s envoy in Germany, told “ARD” that the island state was prepared for a “lightning war” – especially during the Ukraine crisis, when the Europeans and Americans were “tightly tied”. . Yan’s statements on the Olympic stage, which were not contradicted by the IOC, should not have calmed him down. China’s President Xi Jinping has long since announced “reunification” with Taiwan.
For Johannes Herber, managing director of the Verein Athleten Deutschland, the attitude of the IOC is not surprising. It was clear to him “that the IOC would avoid anything that would cause a conflict with the host country,” Herber told “SID”: “I still expect the IOC to do a critical review after the games.”