Time to Name and Shame Again…

Sports are not my strong suit. Nonetheless, I do cheer our Malaysian players when they enter finals in international badminton games. And like most ethnic Chinese, I also feel very upbeat when I see Chinese sports man or woman excel, simply out of kinship pride. In the recent Olympics in France, my wife and I spent hours switching from TV channel to channel, searching for performances by participants from China to cheer or celebrate in our own space.

Malaysia is strong in badminton, but our team could only bag 2 bronzes. We are still fledglings in the other sports.

On the other hand, China entered the final day of Paris 2024 with a 39-38 edge on the U.S. But the day saw the US took two more gold medals – women’s basketball and women’s omnium (which the country bumpkin in me had never heard of before this). China managed one more, in women’s +81kg weightlifting. The final scoreboard was the US 40, 44 and 42 (126), and China 40, 27 and 24 (91).

Japan came in third, which is the same position they held in Tokyo 2020. Russia and Belarus, unfortunately, have again been left out.

Some chauvinists like me thought that China’s gold tally should be 44, for it should include Hong Kong’s 2 and Taiwan’s 2. What a form of self-gratification, silly me!

But I was indeed trying to bring home a point. I was not suggesting China was better or had replaced the US as the world’s No 1 sports power. However, it is clear to me that the US is no longer the sole top dog in the Olympics. Many countries, even countries with small populations, are now able to crane their heads and win disproportionately high number of medals. The exception is India.

This trend was already evident in Tokyo 2020. In July 2021 when Tokyo was hosting a belated Olympics, I wrote this article “What does Tokyo Olympics 2020 say about America?” It attracted some 50,000 readers. Unfortunately, I have accidentally deleted the article from the blog, but please access the following link to read it if you are interested:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sribkF0P07-KMq5miqsuK04aWVbIWhCd/view?usp=sharing

I remember CNN first screamed with this headline then: This US fails to win medal on first day of Summer Olympics for the first time in nearly 50 Years. Then I woke up on the 26^th morning to read this: USA Basketball defeated in first Olympic loss since 2004. I knew the world had changed.

But much of West’s attitude towards China has hardly changed. Especially the Americans.

Americans are seeing Chinese ghosts everywhere, including sports.

In the final weeks of Trump’s presidency, he signed into law that gave the US vast powers to police doping at competitions like the Olympics. The law allows its Justice Department to CRIMINALLY prosecute coaches, trainers, doctors, and sports officials from AROUND the world if they engage in facilitating doping, even if the event is held outside the US. See how arrogant America can be!

(Apparently, the Justice Department is still investigating whether Chinese antidoping authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have covered up the positive tests of nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers who went on to win medals at the last Tokyo Games even though a World Aquatics audit had concluded that there was no mismanagement or cover-up by WADA.

And this incident is still being used by South China Morning Post, a pro-West media in Hong Kong to help fan the suspicion. In its 5 August edition, Ira Gorawara wrote that the UK’s three-time Olympic gold medalist Adam Peaty wants “cheating” Chinese swimmers knocked out of the sport and urged WADA to “wake up and do your job”.

Peaty was angry that China had won the men’s 4x100 metres medley relay gold, ending US’s 40-year reign of that throne. Peaty was suggesting that there was more to the race than meet the eye. Gorawara again brought up the Tokyo incident but did not bother to say that the swimmers had been officially cleared. Journalists in SCMP, as I have said before, can be naughty. They are subtly anti-China, and guess who is the owner? Jack Ma!

Earlier, Australian swimming coach Brett Hawke also suggested that Pan Zhanle’s world-record 100 metres freestyle time was “not humanly possible”. He was simply implying that Pan must have the help of “booster” in achieving his “incredible” feat.

Pan said he had been given the cold shoulder by some of the other swimmers, had to undergo 21 doping tests from May to July. (Apparently, all in all, the Chinese swimming team had to undergo some 600 tests!)  

Chinese were seen as pariahs by many. Below are two snapshots of a video clip I received from a friend. On seeing the French swimmer Léon Marchand approaching, a Chinese swimming coach stretched out his hand to shake the former’s hand. Marchand deliberately ignored the latter and walked on. Was Marchand just showing his unfriendliness? I bet it is more than that. It must be his prejudice against Chinese that is the root cause.

Yes, sports men and women who want to cheat to win should not be allowed to compete. In the earlier eras, many did and got away scot-free. Testing was not so rigorous then.

It is a different reality now. No prohibited drug can escape detection. I dare say that many of those who tested positive are likely to be innocent. The first question any governing body in the sports world should establish is: Was there a deliberate attempt to cheat or take advantage of? Understanding of cultures is important. Chinese parents were forever fussing over their children to eat this and drink that before examinations. Much of TCM’s goodness is based on certain properties of living things, both animals and plants, and organic substances. These tonics can contain prohibited enhancers.

The parents want their children to do well. This is also a form of unfairness. Should children be subject to dope test? Ridiculous, isn’t it? Sports men and women are also vulnerable; the food they inadvertently consume outside may contain traces of banned chemicals. Can we penalise them wholesale? They would not have taken then if they knew these things contain prohibited or dangerous properties.

Weightlifters smell ammonia salt supposedly to help them stay focused, improve concentration and lessen dizziness and pain. Should this be allowed to continue? Also, there was the controversy over the true gender of two women boxers – one from Taiwan and one from Algeria – who went on to collect gold.  It is said that both had failed the eligibility tests administered by the International Boxing Association, yet they were allowed to compete in the Olympics. Isn’t this a very fundamental issue for the two world bodies to resolve? Maybe the XY chromosomes stuff is not so straightforward after all.

This witch-hunting and “guilty until proven innocent” attitude against Chinese athletes and swimmers should stop. I see that the Chinese side is also hitting back. CGTN has reported that one of US’s Olympic track and field team, a certain Erriyon Knighton, had actually tested positive for the banned steroid trenbolone in March and yet USADA did not see fit to impose any penalty on Knighton and he was allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics qualifiers. To the Americans, Knighton had eaten meat that was contaminated with this substance. Maybe it is true. The bottom line is there should not be any double standards. All should rise above all these discriminatory behaviours.

Maybe the world governing bodies should sit down and rewrite rules and apply them without favour, fear or prejudice. And the world community should force the US to repeal its extra-territorial laws. But again, as long as it is the hegemon of the world, it can do pretty much what it likes.

Fortunately, gone are the days when we could only count on Reuters or Associated Press or BBC or CNN to tell us news beyond our shores; today we have CGTN, YouTube and TikTok to help us see other perspectives.

CGTN also reported that WADA had questioned the integrity of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Purportedly, there are at least three cases where athletes who had committed serious anti-doping rule violations were allowed to continue to compete for years while they acted as undercover agents for USADA. In one case, an elite-level athlete, who competed at the Olympic qualifiers and international events in the United States, admitted to taking steroids and EPO, yet was permitted to continue competing all the way up to retirement. Apparently, the case was never published, results never disqualified, prize money never returned, and no suspension ever served. All very ironical and hypocritical. 

To many westerners in the past, Chineseness was epitomized by Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dr Fu Manchu, a fictional character created by an English author in the early 20^th century. The image – someone who donned the typical costume of the Qing era, and with a flowing mustache that is now styled “Fu Manchu” and long, menacing fingernails – was supposed to project cruelty and evil to the extreme, or the Yellow Peril incarnate in one man. Fu Manchu was the typical Chinaman! Nothing good could come out of a Chinaman. It is the mission of every good white man to destroy him!

Indeed, during the era, many Chinese, because of abject poverty and widespread opium addiction, indeed looked like Fu Manchu, but in a more pathetic form – filthy and aways in rags. This prompted the Japanese who had a lofty vision of creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to treat Chinese as sub-humans.  

Then came China’s determination to catch up with the rest of the world. Its market for technology trade-off was painted as IP thefts by the affluent west.

This image of Chineseness has stayed with many in the west, even until today. I suppose Gina Raimondo and Ursula von der Leyen are amongst them.

And this prejudice has now spilled over to the Paris Olympics 2024!

Two Saturdays ago, I attended an online lecture given by one of the greatest living historians of our time, Prof Wang Gungwu, at HELP University on 10 August. The title: China – From Middle Kingdom to World Power: What of the Future?

You have to take your hat off to Prof Wang. He will be 94 soon, yet he is still as sharp as ever. I will talk about his lecture in a different time. But he thought the year 2008 was the watershed year. America was under George Bush’s presidency. The global financial crisis (GFC) and China emerged as the saviour. The obsession began to take shape. A beneficiary of the US’s goodwill had transformed to be the benefactor. No way! A new Fu Manchu must be created!

Sadly, many Yellow Bananas also share this belief!

I self-published this title two years ago: China’s Arduous Journey to Earn Its Place, From Mr Q to President Xi Jinping. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yVFu9KhFlP2XsqI5gQMIf2kcwD3TLEc3/view?usp=drive_link)  Besides the economic and military powers that China is building, it is also important for them to think more deeply how they should go about correcting the prejudices of the deeply indoctrinated lot in the western world.