BEIJING — The Olympics are back in China, whether athletes and activists want them here or not. In spirit, the International Olympic Committee is just another corporation willing to take a PR hit in exchange for the treasure of doing business with China. Put its tax-exempt status aside. Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, were the only two cities that bid for these Games to the end, and the IOC went where the money was (and is). It is the IOC’s way.
If that makes you uneasy as you watch these Olympics … well, it should. The Olympics are a wonderful sporting event colored by geopolitical tensions and packaged by a morally amorphous organization with a history of corruption. This is why the IOC can act the way that it does: It has a product people want to buy, no matter who is selling it or where. Thursday evening here, IOC president Thomas Bach predictably and pathetically praised the hospitality of the Chinese people. Well, sure. The government has been good to him.
Nonetheless: The product remains worth your time. The athletes are marvels and the events are a joy. Nobody has to watch, of course. But it is possible to enjoy the Olympics and still criticize the IOC and China.
The IOC has covered its motives in “Olympic Movement” rhetoric for decades. It’s not a new story—just a story that gets more coverage with every Olympic cycle. And that is for the best. The IOC’s tightrope is getting thinner.
Peter Casey/USA TODAY Sports
The last time the Olympics were held here, in the summer of 2008, activists from Team Darfur were denied entry. President George W. Bush came, and in his speech dedicating the new U.S. embassy, elbowed the hosts, saying, “America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates, and religious activists.” The Chinese government responded by declaring that it was “dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens' basic rights and freedom.” It seemed then like a tense time, but it feels like Christmas morning compared to U.S.-China relations today.
In 2008, Bush stuck around and watched part of Michael Phelps’ historic week. He spoke of a “constructive relationship” with China. The country’s record was deplorable then, but fewer people were paying attention. In the spring of 2008, when a reporter asked longtime NBA commissioner David Stern whether losing a team in Seattle would hurt his league’s Asian presence, Stern confidently and proudly rattled off a list of cities in China that were more vital to the NBA’s future than Seattle. It was a truth, then and now, that current NBA commissioner Adam Silver would probably dance around today.
This time around, the Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games, a far stronger rebuke of China than Bush’s speech.
Countries do not spend billions of dollars hosting the Olympics just because they love the event. The bids are partly a way to pump up politicians’ egos, and mostly an investment in image-shaping, an opportunity to present yourself to the world as you would like the world to see you. When we don’t like it, we call it propaganda.
In 2002, Bush opened the Olympics in Salt Lake City on behalf of “a proud, determined and grateful nation.” The day was dripping with imagery that was not remotely about sports. Bush stood at attention as U.S. athletes, joined by an honor guard of New York City police officers and firefighters, carried a tattered American flag found at the World Trade Center site. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir greeted Bush with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Salt Lake City had landed the Games in part because it had bribed IOC officials, and in the wake of 9/11, U.S. leaders used the event to stoke patriotic feelings.
China is using the Olympics for more devious reasons. Of course the IOC had to know this would happen. It just never cared. Chinese officials wanted the Games so they could sell a softer, gentler version of the country, and the IOC is cool with that.
When Bach was asked about the Olympic Charter’s ban on athletes’ protesting, he compared it to an actor in Hamlet deviating from Shakespeare’s words to make a political statement. It was a ridiculous answer—an attempt to rationalize kowtowing as the only acceptable behavior. Perhaps some day, athletes will recognize their power, organize like a union and force the IOC to become a more morally responsible organization. Olympians deserve Olympic officials with a higher, stronger conscience.
