2022 Olympic Winter Games Beijing

LawLeadsToPeace

Senior Member
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Registered Member
I agree the NYT story is relatively better than other similar articles from ESPN, The Economist etc., which are bitter, salty, and sour. It's also better than other NYT reports on China lately, surprising.

I feel that Eileen Gu story could have been a very good, inspiring story that unites the US and China. Eileen perfectly represents a sort of marriage between China and the US, and a great product of such marriage. Indeed, she owes her success to her raw talent, her US upbrings and her Chinese heritage (the roles of her mother and grandma). Both countries could easily identify her as their own without much difficulties. Just like what the ESPN article said at the end: she would not have become what she is today without the US training and environment, but she would also have not become the celebrity that she is today without China. She can further leverage her influence and likely success in the Beijing Winter Olympic to inspire a generation of Chinese young people and help promote the winter sports that China really needs to develop, the kind of impact that she could not dream of in the US. In the process, she could become a friendship and goodwill ambassador between the US and China that no other person could possibly be.

That is, if that's even in the interest of the US.
Couldn’t she do that without dumping her citizenship? For example, in basketball, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James are huge icons in China and generate significant amount of revenue. Plus, based on what I’ve seen on Douyin and BiliBili, those guys are really inspirational for many young Chinese basketball players regardless of their background. So I don’t think she really needed to dump her citizenship if she wanted to be an “ambassador” for US-China cultural relations.

In my opinion, there are more reasons to her “defection” than meets the eye. Her single parent family and hardship, Chinese family background, education and care, and experience with racism indicate to me that she didn’t make this decision to dump her citizenship solely because she wanted money and to be a “cultural ambassador”.
 

weig2000

Captain
Couldn’t she do that without dumping her citizenship? For example, in basketball, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James are huge icons in China and generate significant amount of revenue. Plus, based on what I’ve seen on Douyin and BiliBili, those guys are really inspirational for many young Chinese basketball players regardless of their background. So I don’t think she really needed to dump her citizenship if she wanted to be an “ambassador” for US-China cultural relations.

Short answer is NO. She would be an inspiration that is quite different from what Kobe or Lebron is. Or Michael Jordan was. Indeed, in the case of Eileen, it's much more than she renounced her US citizenship and became a Chinese citizen. It's also the fact that she is at home and at ease with her Chineseness - her perfect Mandarin Chinese and her affinity with Chinese culture. Chinese identifies with her in a way that is completely different from that with Kobe/Lebron/Jordan or indeed some naturalized talented sports figures. If she was just another outstanding Chinese American, the impact would be vastly different. And she is still so young! Sure, CN Yang restored his Chinese citizenship in his '90s ...

In my opinion, there are more reasons to her “defection” than meets the eye. Her single parent family and hardship, Chinese family background, education and care, and experience with racism indicate to me that she didn’t make this decision to dump her citizenship solely because she wanted money and to be a “cultural ambassador”.

I very much agree with you. I don't know exactly why or what her complete story is, but it's not difficult to piece together from all these stories and reports about her that there is still some "Chineseness" that we don't know or are not supposed to know.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
I feel really bad for Eileen Gu.
She is being branded simultaneously as a ungrateful traitor, opportunist, and ignoramus.

This garbage article really ticked me off. I thought it would be interesting, but instead it was state department tripe.
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The criticism of Ms. Gu is just showing all the worst traits that western media claims to be striving to eliminate, sexism, racism, intolerance, ignorance. Why is she attracting so much extra attention? Simply because she is a smart, attractive, Chinese female at the top of her game. What a joke.

They compare her to Peng Shuhai, saying the government can disappear her at any moment if they are not happy with her. Ignoring the fact that Peng Shuhai is not disappeared and has made many public appearances. They also interview some talking head from "Freedom House" saying how she can't say anything about Uyghurs, Hong Kong, or Human rights etc. You know, why should she comment? If she thinks terrible abuses are happening, why would she represent China? If she doesn't think they are, then why would she want to attract even more negative western press? Any comment is a no-win for her, that is common sense.

Nina Schultz/Zheng and her Brother Ty, both are Canadians who are representing China. With all due respect to them as high level competitors, neither are attracting the kind of negative press that Gu does simply because they weren't/aren't gold medal contenders.

Freddie Freeman (Atlanta Braves 1B) an American who chose to represent Canada at World Baseball Classic despite never living a day in Canada. Why? He said being Canadian (never taking American citizenship) was very important to his mother who had passed away, so this it was a tribute to her. It was a touching gesture that no one questioned.
Why bother? They have 1.4 billion people behind their back, they have 1.4 billion people cheering for them. I don't think they care about the feeling and thinking of those low lives in the west, neither should we.
 

coolieno99

Junior Member
Koreans have the world's biggest inferiority complex. .......
I repectfully disagree. It's not Koreans, but Indians have the world's biggest inferiority complex.
YouTube is the 2nd most visited website on the Internet.
It's extremely rare to find a video, channel or comments from an actual Korean bashing China on YouTube.
On the other hand, there are countless Indian videos, channels or comments bashing China on YouTube.
Besides, sometimes Indians disguised themselves as Whites and East Asians on the Internet, which complicate matters.
 
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