The case of Peng Shuai, a women’s tennis star and three-time Olympian from China, who disappeared from public view after making sexual abuse allegations against a former high ranking Chinese politician, continues to dominate the headlines.
This week, the European Union (EU) joined the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and scores of human rights groups, politicians and everyday fans demanding answers from the Chinese government about Peng’s well-being and whereabouts. The WTA chairman and CEO Steve Simon announced on Wednesday an immediate suspension of all WTA tournaments in China, including Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has opted for “quiet diplomacy.”
On November 21, the IOC released a statement with an image of a video call involving Peng and the president of IOC, Thomas Bach. Few details were provided about what was discussed and no reference was made to Peng’s sexual assault allegations against Zhang Gaoli, who was vice premier when Beijing was awarded the Winter Olympics in 2015. Rather than ease concerns, the call raised more questions, not only about Peng’s circumstances, but also about IOC’s relationship with China.
We spoke to Bruce Kidd and Peter Donnelly of the University of Toronto (U of T) Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) about their thoughts on the case and how it may impact the Winter Olympic Games, scheduled to start in Beijing in less than 100 days. Kidd is an emeritus professor of KPE and former Olympian and Donnelly is an emeritus professor of KPE and former director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies (CSPS).
What’s your take on how the IOC handled the case of Peng Shuai? Is Richard Pound, the Canadian lawyer and IOC’s longest-serving member, right to defend the IOC tactics of “quiet diplomacy vs. clashing cymbals”?
Bruce Kidd: I agree with Richard on the importance of ‘quiet diplomacy’ to ensure the success of the Olympics, because the goal is to engage every country in the world, not just those that proclaim liberal-democratic values. It’s much easier to reach the compromises necessary to have inclusive games without public bargaining. Richard has experienced the effect of such diplomacy first-hand. Without his and Juan Antonio Samaranch’s endless shuttle-diplomacy in the build-up to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, there may have well been a Soviet bloc boycott of those Games.
Peter Donnelly: Quiet diplomacy is certainly important, but there is also a case for transparency. Peng Shuai took an incredible risk by publicly accusing a powerful man of sexual abuse. Concerns for her status and wellbeing were understandable, and Bach's video call - at least the parts that were released - just became part of officialdom's campaign of 'nothing to see here'. The claim of sexual abuse has not even been mentioned, Peng Shuai did 'disappear' for several weeks after the claim and only re-appeared in tightly controlled conditions after a worldwide outcry. This has to be a concern for those athletes, sports officials and media who are about to travel to China.
Critics of the IOC accuse them of being silent about Beijing’s human rights record. To what extent is it the responsibility of the IOC to monitor the human rights record of member states?
BK: Historically, the IOC chose not to monitor the human rights records of member National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and their respective governments, on the grounds that it needed a ‘low threshold’ to have a ‘big tent’, i.e. that any such monitoring would prevent it from including every national community in the world. Certainly for the 20th century, that approach was consistent with the widely accepted principle of non-intervention in the affairs of nation states.
Today, with the gradual acceptance of the principle of the right to protect in international affairs, and the growing calls for the enforcement of human rights, the IOC is struggling to realize human rights in a world where significant parts of the world do not recognize liberal-democratic definitions of human rights, or even human rights at all. The IOC has now created human rights requirements for the staging of Games, but they won’t go into effect until Paris in 2024, and even then, it is unclear what mechanisms for compliance there will be.
PD: Some of the strongest voices now for the recognition of human rights in the Olympic movement are athletes, and athletes' organizations and unions. They are building up to demands for a voice in decision making for decisions that affect them. Such decisions range from those concerning their treatment at the hands of coaches and officials in their sport to those concerning where sporting events are to be held. If the IOC is to represent athletes in the future, they will have to take account of the human rights records of member states.
In a column for The Guardian last year, Thomas Bach wrote that the IOC is politically neutral and that neither awarding the Games nor participating in them are a political judgment regarding the host country. Is it possible to be politically neutral in sport or is that a political statement in itself?
BK: It is a political statement, i.e. it takes a position on the current state of the sporting world. It also tries to express the IOC’s long tradition of ‘non-intervention’. But in saying this, Bach is falling back into an earlier discourse of ‘sport above politics’, which is pure mystification. Several other presidents, notably Michael Killanan, were much more prepared to speak candidly. Of course, there’s politics in sport, he used to say; our challenge is navigating them, with constant diplomacy, to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm to sport.
PD: Yes. Political neutrality is political in that it frequently means affirming the status quo. Quiet (political) diplomacy leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics led to assurances that the Olympics would result in an increase in human rights in China. In fact, the human rights situation has worsened since 2008 and yet Beijing is again hosting an Olympics. Protecting sport, or protecting the Olympics, means kicking discussions of human rights up the road. See, for example, the IOC's 2020 Independent Expert report, Recommendations for an IOC Human Rights Strategy.
What’s really at stake for the IOC if their relationship with China sours?
BK There’s much at stake for the IOC. First and foremost, the revenue, about half of which is distributed to NOCs, including those in the First World, like the Canadian Olympic Committee, and International Federations, so that’s significant. The rest goes to its own far-flung activities, including Olympic Solidarity, a major source of sport funding in the Global South. Secondly, there’s its legitimacy as an inclusive, world-wide movement. China is the largest (by population) in the world, and it has many supporters among countries and populations in the Global South.
IOC’s light-touch response to the case of Peng Shuai seems to indicate that they will not let it distract from the start of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. On that other hand, some countries, including Canada, have renewed talks of a boycott. What do you think will happen and what do you think should happen?
BK: I don’t think there will be a boycott and I don’t think much will be gained by supporting a boycott that has no traction.
As I’ve written in various blogs. I don’t think it makes sense to put all the burden for the proposed boycott on athletes when Canadian trade with China is at record highs, and Canadian universities and colleges now get their largest source of revenue from tuition from international students, many of whom come from China.
I do think we need to press the IOC to ensure conditions for inclusive, open-information games, which means to get the Chinese government to guarantee (1) the full accreditation of journalists and their protection while in China, and (2) the full rights of expression for athletes under the revised Rule 50. The IOC needs to insist that during the Winter Olympics, Beijing and the other Olympic cities will be ‘Olympic cities’ governed by the Olympic Charter.
I also strongly believe that the IOC and NOCs like the COC should do a much better job in educating athletes, coaches and other officials about the conditions in China, Chinese culture, etc., and organizing opportunities for the full intercultural exchange that was the original intent of having the Olympics in countries with very different social and legal systems. But COVID really makes that complicated. It’s sad that the only spectators will be from China.
In the wake of the Peng Shuai revelations, athletes from all over the world should strengthen the calls for the establishment of an internationally accessible, completely independent mechanism to address sexual and other forms of abuse in sports. It’s not just a Chinese issue.
Canadian athletes in Beijing should make a special effort to reach out to Peng Shuai to compare notes about the struggles for safe sports in their respective countries.
PD: I do not believe in boycotts that only affect athletes. However, I do believe that the IOC should be engaged in both quiet and noisy diplomacy to guarantee the rights of athletes to make political statements, and to express concerns about human rights, during the Olympic Games, and the rights of media to report on them.