The Olympic Charter promotes “the preservation of human dignity” and prohibits all forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of national origin. But there is one country at the Olympics that is treated differently than other countries.
If you don’t already know which one, go to the Olympics website and scroll through the list of National Olympic Committees. You’ll see the names of each country along with its national flag. One of those countries is imaginary. It literally does not exist. The national flag is also fake.
This country and its athletes are banned from carrying their real flag, playing their real national anthem, and using their country’s real name at the Olympics and at all other international sporting events.
This country hosted the World University Games in 2017, and its athletes were banned from carrying their nation’s flag in their own country. The outrageousness of the whole situation was enough to inspire athletes from another country, Argentina, to protest by bursting into the closing ceremony waving the host country’s flag — to much applause by local spectators.
Such experiences are humiliating not just for this country’s athlete but for all 24 million of its citizens. They were so upset by it that they held a vote in 2018 on whether to defy the name ban at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Days before the election, in an apparent attempt to intimidate voters, the International Olympic Committee threatened to expel this country from the Olympics if it dared to use its real name. The IOC succeeded in tipping the election but just barely.
It seems bizarre that the IOC would be so hellbent on preventing a country from using its real name and flag at the Olympics. The IOC’s behavior not only violates the Olympic Charter but also basic human decency. How to explain it?
In one word: China. Behind the scenes, the Chinese Communist Party is pulling the strings. It is pulling the strings so artfully that it was able to get this country stripped of its right to host the 2019 East Asian Youth Games, even after this country had spent 3 years and more than $20 million preparing for it.
Unfortunately, the CCP’s leverage expands well beyond the world of sports. It has prevented this country from gaining membership to the United Nations and the World Health Organization even though this country is widely recognized as having been one of the best in the world at managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
China has also successfully used its economic and military weight to pressure most foreign nations to cut off formal diplomatic relations with this country. Most disturbingly of all, the Chinese government is openly threatening to invade this country. The only thing that has been standing in its way is the United States military.
Have you guessed which country we are talking about yet? The name of the country is not “Chinese Taipei,” which is the name that it is forced to compete under in the Olympics. This country’s real name — the name that it prefers to be called — is Taiwan.
Last month, I started a petition demanding equal treatment for Taiwan’s athletes, urging that they be allowed to compete in the Olympics using the name, flag, and anthem of their real country. Although hundreds of people have signed the petition, the IOC has ignored it so far.
The IOC shouldn’t be allowed to escape accountability.
Right now, many countries are debating whether or not to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. More than 150 human rights organizations and political leaders have accused the IOC of turning a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. I would go a step further and argue that the IOC is guilty of carrying out human rights violations on China’s behalf. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [or her] nationality.” Yet, the IOC is depriving the Taiwanese of their nationality.
As government leaders around the world decide whether or not to boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics, one of the things that should factor into their decision is whether or not the IOC has the moral integrity to admit that its past treatment of the Taiwanese is wrong. If the IOC does not rectify its mistakes by giving the Taiwanese their nationality back at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this summer, Taiwan’s allies should boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in protest.
Lindell Lucy is an American who teaches at an international school in Tokyo.
