An advertisement for the Chinese sportswear company shows US-born freestyle ski gold medalist Eileen Gu, or Gu Ailing and other athletes competing for China at the Summer Olympics. east Beijing 2022 on a street last week in Beijing.
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An advertisement for the Chinese sportswear company shows US-born freestyle ski gold medalist Eileen Gu, or Gu Ailing and other athletes competing for China at the Summer Olympics. east Beijing 2022 on a street last week in Beijing.
Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
BEIJING – This Winter Olympics, you may have noticed that nearly three dozen athletes competing for Team China are not Chinese nationals.
Who gets to play for a country’s national team at the Winter Olympics is a particularly complicated question in China, where issues of identity, ethnicity and citizenship are at stake.
Just to be clear: switching teams is extremely common. Countries with a long history of immigration, such as the United States or Canada, as well as smaller nations, such as Qatar or Bahrain, have long supported their national teams with athletes. naturalization.
“There’s definitely a ‘sewer’ going on [on]Tom Fabian, a researcher at the University of Ottawa who studies international athletics, is essentially harnessing sports capital from economically developing nations.
However, China is a latecomer in this practice. That’s because it strictly forbids its citizens to hold citizenship in another country.
So when US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu announced on Instagram in July 2019 that she would compete for Team China in the Beijing Winter Olympics, the internet exploded. Many people wonder: Did Gu take his Chinese passport and give up his American passport?
So far, she has definitely avoided answering such questions. “I’m American when I’m in America, and I’m Chinese when I’m in China,” she told a recent Olympic press conference.
China’s nationality law dates back more than a century
Why does China have such strict nationality laws?
The answer dates back to the Qing dynasty, specifically 1909 – just two years before a major revolution ended imperial rule in China.
Qing Dynasty officials implemented China’s first nationality law in 1909, establishing bloodline principle – the idea that citizenship is based on Chinese heritage, not where you were born.
People of Chinese descent living abroad – in Southeast Asia, the United States, and Europe – were agitating the overthrow of dynastic rule in China, so Qing officials were desperate to cooperate with those of Chinese descent. these foreigners and prevent them from joining the revolution.
They were inspired by the Japanese nationality law at the time, which was also based on jus sanguinis principles of civil rights.
“It was truly a 20th century phenomenon as Chinese regimes celebrated and reached out and sought connection with the so-called diaspora,” said Tom Mullaney, a history professor at Stanford University. Flowers abroad”.
Thus, controlling citizenship is one way to ensure that only China is loyal. Shao Dan, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said: “They argue that the consequence of the bloodline principle is unconditional loyalty.
The emphasis on ancestral national identity also stems from a desire to protect Chinese citizens abroad.
Shao said that Qing officials wanted to push back against a move in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) to consider thousands of ethnic Chinese in the colony as Dutch citizens. That sparked a series of letters asking the Qing court to grant the affected people Chinese citizenship.
Today, the ethnic heritage approach to nationality continues to allow the Chinese state to consider overseas Chinese – even foreign passport holders – to be essentially Chinese in identity. their ethnicity and target for political influence.
Nationality is more important than citizenship
For athletes who decide which national team will compete, eligibility depends on whether the athlete has Chinese nationality or not, but not necessarily nationality.
This is where it gets even more complicated.
“Nationality is a much more formal recognition that imparts certain rights to you, whereas nationality is not,” said Mike Gow, lecturer in international business at UK’s Edgehill University. have that right”. “Nationality… is more closely tied to your identity [and] who are you.”
The International Olympic Committee does not require athletes to have citizenship to compete on a national team – only that they can prove their nationality.
The establishment of nationality can result from living in a country for a certain period of time or showing a personal connection to that country through ancestry. Example: International Ice Hockey Federation allow male athletes who spend at least four years living in a country and playing for their national team to represent that country at international competitions. (Female hockey players only need to do so for two years.)
As a result, about three-quarters of the Chinese Team consists of athletes – some of whom are not of Chinese descent – born in North America and Russia.
So foreign athletes with Chinese parents abroad can claim Chinese citizenship to compete for China – and potentially hold a second foreign passport.
The IOC confirms that Gu naturalized in China in 2019.
“Legal process has been followed and the necessary documents, including a copy of her Chinese passport, have been submitted by the National Olympic Committee of China. Therefore, Ms. Gu is fully qualified. event, from a nationality perspective, to represent the People’s Republic of China at the IOC said in an email in response to questions from NPR.
Follow Chinese Consulate in New YorkAthletes who obtain Chinese permanent residency can also play for the Chinese national team.
In 2020, China relaxed the requirements for permanent resident status – similar to a green card – so that any foreigner with economic, scientific and technological, educational, cultural, health and sports aptitudes is eligible.
Gary Chodorow, a US immigration attorney specializing in China, said that although only a small number of people have received permanent residency, the policy is an indication of China’s tough stance on people Considered that the Chinese can be relaxed – just a little.
“Perhaps the most important factor for the Chinese government is being able to take advantage of the wealth and expertise of overseas Chinese and allow them to come to China to share what they have and contribute,” Chodorov said. contribute.
The rule of law is one thing, but acceptance by a larger society than China is another.
That only seems to extend to successful people.
Zhu Yi, the US-born figure skater on the Chinese team, fell during his first Olympic performance. That Fouland her raspy Mandarin, has caused Chinese netizens to denigrate her for taking the position of a Chinese-born figure skater.
