did the stray dove symbolize Taiwan? At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday, one of the participating children seemed to be too late to join the others to form the bright bird figure. It had to be taken by the hand, so it could find its way into the grand harmony. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait largely interpreted this as a political message. The resulting debate again demonstrates that this year’s Olympics are politically charged. Similarly controversial was the choice to let an Uyghur woman carry the torch to light the Olympic fire. Sports fans and athletes, on the other hand, want the Olympics to be held in a less delicate environment. After all, the only thing that is supposed to matter is who is the highest, the fastest, and the strongest.
An expert in sporting excellence is the distinguished ski coach Michael Brunner. He has plenty of tournament experience himself. China.Table spoke with him because he has been on a special assignment over recent years. He was tasked to quickly groom a generation of Chinese ski athletes. The talents he was mentoring were very athletic, but some of them had never been on snow before: young martial artists, dancers or gymnasts. Brunner was thus tasked with transforming typically Chinese talents into winter athletes. He told Michael Radunski about his experiences during the retraining of splits masters to downhill skiers.
By the way, Vladimir Putin also skis himself. His personal downhill coach was the former president of the Russian Olympic Committee. So Putin is probably also interested in the competitions. As a power politician, however, he has traveled to Beijing for a different reason. By getting China’s support, he is strengthening his position in the dispute over NATO’s eastward expansion and Ukraine. Xi has now promised Putin the desired support against the West. Read more about the two eastern powers joining forces in our analysis.
Who is Chinese? Under the red flag with the five stars, numerous athletes who grew up in other countries take part in the Olympics. Christiane Kuehl investigates the question to what extent the immigration authorities make exceptions in the interpretation of citizenship to benefit the medal table.
Although you will not find a medal table here, we still wish to keep you up to date on important Chinese achievements at irregular intervals. Other media only tend to focus on their country’s medals.
The Winter Olympics in Beijing have begun. Now it’s all about medals – and this is precisely where China has a problem. At the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, the athletes of the People’s Republic won only one meager gold medal. This does not reflect China’s image of itself under Xi Jinping. A medal table in which they win as few golds as Slovakia or Hungary and fewer than Belarus or the Czech Republic is not something Beijing wants to see again. “They got the Winter Olympics and then realized that they have no ski athletes at all.” That is Michael Brunner’s bitter diagnosis.
Brunner knows what he’s talking about. He used to be close to the world’s alpine top himself and was part of the German national team at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer. He now runs a ski school in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Brunner is undoubtedly an expert in his field. But the call from China came as something of a surprise. The former World Cup racer was to find China’s alpine medal contenders. “The Chinese then simply set up a program. The order from the top was: We want to have so and so many people in four years. Here’s the budget. Make it happen.” And Brunner got to work. In August 2018, Brunner flies to China, traveling to the ends of this vast country: to Nanning, to a city near the border to Vietnam where it never snows. Or to Kashgar, on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Brunner is organizing what is probably the biggest casting in sports history: Who will become China’s ski ace?
Mr. Brunner, how did your work in China go?
I visited the local sports boarding schools, huge areas with several halls. You can hardly imagine the scale on which this is done in China. And they put 250 children aged 14 to 18 in each of them.
What kind of athletes were they?
These were athletes who were already very successful, but because of their constitution, their abilities, or something else, they didn’t make it into the global elite. For example, gymnasts who had grown too tall. They were all highly motivated because they suddenly had another chance for success.
That sounds brilliant: experienced and motivated athletes.
However, the problem was that they all came from completely different sports: wrestlers, gymnasts, kung-fu fighters, and dancers. Wildly thrown together.
Did some already have experience in skiing?
No, not at all. None of them had ever stood on skis, let alone seen snow.
But what do you do with such a colorful bunch? What was your approach?
We have made tests: coordination, speed, endurance. The physiognomy was assessed. Bowlegs, for example, are not acceptable, because the risk of an anterior cruciate ligament injury is far too great. And we played soccer with them. But we were not allowed to say ‘play’, everything was much too serious. That’s why I spoke of ‘body move check’. And at the end, there were 40 athletes left.
They brought their own aptitude test, so to speak – and those who didn’t pass this test were kicked out?
It wasn’t that simple. I also learned a lot in the process and had to adapt.
How?
For example, the gymnast from Nanning shows you a double somersault from a standing position, but while his ankles are very strong, they are not flexible enough for skiing. Or the dancer who goes down smoothly into the splits, but can’t manage the internal rotation in his hips. These are all things that you only know afterward. There’s no textbook on how to go from dancer to skier. Or preferably, to an Olympic champion right away.
With the chosen ones, you then went to Garmisch to your ski school.
No, no. It wasn’t that simple. Originally, I was only in charge of the training. But when I asked if they had already arranged accommodation, transport or visas, the answer was: No, we haven’t. So I took care of all that, too, because I was really interested in the project.
But the Chinese side at least had a clear goal: medals at the Olympic Games.
I told them quite frankly, this goal will be very difficult to achieve.
Very difficult or not at all?
Not at all. Look, here in Germany, most people stop at the age of 14. Our Chinese only just start at the age of 14.
What does this mean for China’s medal chances?
I explained to the Chinese that in Europe, children start skiing at the age of three or four and go to the slopes for several days and several hours every year. So at that age, they all already have thousands of hours of skiing in their bones. And then the Chinese told me: ‘It’s very simple. From now on, we ski 365 days a year, train seven days, six hours a day, then we’ll have the number of hours in a short time.’
Very good. Mathematically, that’s about right.
Sure. But sports is not mathematics. That’s clear to them. The boys and girls also need to regenerate.
And that’s where you stood your ground?
Yes, almost always. There were no problems at all with the athletes, but it was difficult with the officials.
What happened?
They actually wanted to go through with their math plan. One day we were going to the slopes in the morning and the kids could barely walk up the stairs. The whole ski day was ruined. When I asked what had happened last night, they told me that the Chinese supervisor had ordered strength training. What nonsense. That’s just happening. So our goal was for the athletes to meet the Olympic standard.
And how did the training go, especially in the beginning?
We had to start from scratch. Even before Garmisch, my assistants in Beijing showed the athletes how to get into the ski boots and strap on the skis. Then, with us, we also went up to the Zugspitze.
How did the communication go?
There were translators, but we quickly realized that we had to keep commands and instructions simple. You don’t get very far with technical terminology. But that was no problem.
What was the relationship with the athletes like then?
Very good. I am still in contact with many of them. We write to each other regularly. We have grown attached to the boys and girls. And they said we were really nice coaches, which seems to be very unusual.
But then you quit after just one year. Why?
It became harder and harder. They actually wanted to ski 365 days a year and keep changing my training schedule. In addition, there was a change of supervisors and officials every four weeks. Each time I then had to explain everything all over again. That’s more talking than training. You have to sit at the desk all day, write everything down and justify it. They wanted to know everything. But my knowledge stays in my head. I’m a practical person who works with the athletes on the slopes and passes things on that way.
What is your conclusion?
From a sporting aspect, it was very exciting. The progress on the slopes was huge. From being hardly able to get into the ski boots to achieving the Olympic standard. The boys and girls are now skiing a good slalom down a steep slope. Four of my athletes are in the Olympics.
So there will be medals for China in the slalom and downhill after all?
Not that. They will more likely drive under the radar. But nevertheless, they have achieved the standard. You have to pull that off first. That’s a great success.
Xi Jinping currently has several reasons to celebrate: The Chinese Spring Festival marks the beginning of the new year; these are the most important holidays in the People’s Republic. In addition, the Winter Olympics are held in Beijing, making it the first city ever to host both the Winter and Summer Games. And politically, China’s head of state also has reason to rejoice: His good friend Vladimir Putin has come to visit, especially for the Olympic opening ceremony. Russia’s president wants to let the world know: Relations between China and Russia have “taken on a truly unprecedented character.”
A glance at Xi’s foreign policy diary shows just how important Putin’s visit is: he has not met a world leader in person since the Corona pandemic began almost two years ago. For Putin, however, Xi is now leaving his self-imposed diplomatic Corona quarantine. “For China, Putin’s visit is an important demonstration of support at a time when the US, UK, and other countries are undertaking a diplomatic boycott of the Games,” says David Shullmann, Senior Director of the Global China Hub of the think tank Atlantic Council in Washington. Consequently, China’s media are also celebrating the Olympic meeting of Xi and Putin with euphoria, claiming that it opens a new chapter in the relations between the two nations.
Putin left no doubt about this during his visit. He said that he had known Xi Jinping for a long time and that “as good friends and politicians who share many common views on solving world problems” they had a similar view of global politics.
The two leaders also revealed this view in a joint statement. It bristles with mutual support against the West: Xi and Putin call for a halt to NATO expansion in Eastern Europe and a limit to the growing influence of the United States in the Indo-Pacific, as it endangers peace and stability. They expressed serious concern about the growing military cooperation between the United States, the UK, Australia, and Japan (China.Table reported).
China has also recently taken an unusually clear stand on Russia’s side in the escalating Ukraine conflict. Foreign Minister Wang Yi described Russia’s security concerns as “legitimate” and should be taken seriously by everyone. Beijing is eagerly awaiting further developments in the Donbas. If Moscow’s military escapades should succeed without much resistance from the West, Beijing could draw parallels for its own plans regarding Taiwan’s reintegration into the People’s Republic.
What the Kremlin announced as a “vision for international security policy” is basically a securitized closing of ranks against the West. China and Russia are increasingly forming a bloc against a world order led by the United States. Yuri Ushakov, adviser to the Russian leadership, said in Moscow a few days ago that Russia and China both believe that it was necessary to create a more just and rational world order.
According to Chinese political expert Ruan Zongze of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), “Both countries show their determination to maintain global justice in a multipolar world, while the US imposes its ideology on others under the guise of multilateralism and interferes in states to assert its own hegemony.”
His choice of words is striking: justice, rational, multipolar. These are terms that show that the two authoritarian heads of state start to believe themselves to be morally superior and that they are using this to position themselves against the liberal world order of the West.
Putin’s visit to Beijing is the 38th meeting of the two heads of state since 2013 – and Russia’s president has not only brought wordy declarations to Beijing but also power contracts. Among other things, China is to receive an additional ten billion cubic meters of gas per year. By comparison, Russia supplied around 16 billion cubic meters of gas to the People’s Republic in 2021. That is almost twice the volume (China.Table reported). But more interesting than the pure volume will be the price at which Beijing will purchase Russian gas. Because when it comes to money, the much-vaunted Chinese-Russian friendship reached its limits fairly quickly in the past.
Nevertheless, it is clear that both sides benefit from the current gas deal: Xi, because his power-hungry economy urgently needs the gas. Above all, to become CO2-neutral by 2060, China needs to get away from its dirty coal as soon as possible. And Putin, because the West is now threatening further sanctions in the Ukraine conflict, and gas supplies to China offer an alternative export route. However, Putin will not be able to simply divert European supplies because the gas for China does not come from the same sources as the gas for Europe.
Far more important than the ten billion cubic meters of gas now agreed on are the plans to build the “Power of Siberia 2” gas pipeline: With a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters per year, it would not only dramatically increase Russia’s gas exports to China in one fell swoop, but due to its connection to the Yamal gas field it would also enter into direct competition with gas supplies to Europe.
Another important aspect of the current meeting is the two countries’ efforts to facilitate monetary transactions between the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan, which Vladimir Putin mentioned in a guest article for the Chinese news agency Xinhua. This, too, is a clear pointer to the West, which is threatening to exclude Moscow from the international payment system Swift over the Ukraine conflict.
Overall, trade between China and Russia has increased massively in recent years – from around $10 billion in 2001 to $140 billion in 2021, as the Chinese Ministry of Commerce recently announced. Overall, however, the ratios in this area are clearly distributed – apart from power supplies, Russia is of exceedingly little economic relevance for China.
Although joint exercises and the bilateral arms trade are steadily increasing, the balance of power is visibly shifting here as well. Until the last decade, Moscow was able to profitably sell slightly outdated equipment such as SU-35 jets or S-400 missiles to Beijing. But China has long since caught up – as recent progress in the development of hypersonic weapons shows (China.Table reported). And so Moscow is increasingly finding itself in the position of junior partner in this area as well.
All in all, Russia is much more dependent on China in the current situation than vice versa, said Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Center in Moscow at a discussion panel a few days ago. Beijing is very pragmatic and has many levers at its disposal in its relationship with Russia, he said. “China’s negotiating position is improving day by day. So it is better to make a deal with China today than tomorrow,” Gabuev says.
Relations between China and Russia are indeed better than ever – and this is primarily because of the West. The disputes along the common border have been settled. In addition, the two states are growing closer together politically and economically. And the personal aspect should not be underestimated in this case: Xi and Putin are very similar – as strong men at the head of authoritarian states and endowed with theoretically unlimited office terms, they both see themselves on a mission.
However, it is highly doubtful whether the two are actually friends. The two sides reach their limits too far quickly in individual areas. To make matters worse, the Sino-Russian balance of power is shifting more and more in Beijing’s favor, posing potential conflicts – both in Central Asia and in the Arctic. Thus, it is currently primarily the geopolitical tensions with the liberal West that are bringing China and Russia ever closer.
A video sparked the debate. It shows Eileen Gu opening a large cardboard box in her room, pulling out her uniforms for the Chinese ski freestyle team: jackets, hoodies, gloves, caps. Together with China’s freestyle coach Jaime Melton, she celebrates the fitting like on a catwalk – and posts it on Instagram and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok sister. The clothing is sponsored by Anta, a manufacturer that is considered patriotic (China.Table reported). “We got our Olympic gear today & I wanted to let u all know that we’re the best runway models in the Olympic village,” Gu wrote about the video on Instagram.
Eileen Gu received almost 20,000 likes on Instagram and about twice as many on Douyin. The 18-year-old is the gold standard in ski freestyle. And since the American-born skier decided to compete for China at the 2019 Olympics, she’s been a superstar in her mother’s home country. But she never answered one question: Does she hold the Chinese citizenship? And if so, did she turn in her US citizenship? Or was she allowed to keep both passports?
But that is actually forbidden in China for people over the age of 18. Eileen Gu turned 18 on September 3 last year. “In China, I’m Chinese; in the US, I’m American,” she says again and again in many different ways. Her continued silence on the matter of citizenship only fuels the suspicion that there may have been a very special solution for her.
In the hype surrounding Gu as a trendy gold medal contender, this question remained unimportant in China for a surprisingly long time. But her video at the beginning of the Olympics triggered a debate on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. The South China Morning Post took a closer look at the comments. According to one opinion, dual citizenship is fine “as long as the Chinese flag is raised in the award ceremony when she becomes champion. At least she’s willing to share her champion title with China.” “Does it matter? She is of mixed heritage and has sentimental ties to both sides,” another said.
The newspaper cites only one article that raises the possible unequal treatment of Gu and ordinary citizens. Is it a double standard to “celebrate an athlete with dual citizenship?”
China is far from an open debate on the introduction of the dual passport. This raises the question: Did Beijing simply make a pragmatic decision by not asking Eileen Gu to give up her US passport after her 18th birthday, contrary to common practice? Was there a deal? Or did Gu refuse to hand it over, knowing her importance to China at the Olympics? Could China even force her to surrender the passport?
There are no answers. But there are at least indications that Gu still holds her US passport. Her name never appeared on the US Treasury Department’s register of expatriated Americans, writes the British magazine Economist in a long article about Gu’s balancing act between East and West. Red Bull, one of Gu’s main sponsors, had initially written on its website that Gu had “decided to give up her American passport.” But when a Wall Street Journal reporter called the company for confirmation, Red Bull removed the passage, the Economist said.
Gu is the daughter of a Beijing woman and a US man, but the latter had left the family. She grew up in a wealthy background in California. She was surrounded by local trends that attracted her, including the free-spirited Freestyle scene. On the other hand, she was raised by her mother and Chinese grandmother. She is fluent in both languages and has always balanced between worlds. Years before she decided to compete for China, Gu had already been in touch with China’s ski scene through her mother.
Since her switch, Eileen Gu has become a superstar in China and received lucrative advertising contracts there (China.Table reported). She has 1.3 million followers on Weibo – compared to “only” 250,000 on Instagram. Gu does not comment on the political situation in China. A few months after the Olympics, she plans to study at California’s elite Stanford University. It doesn’t seem as if the freestyle star wants to turn her back on the USA.
Time and again, athletes compete at the Olympics for nations in which they were not born. South Korea also secured support for the Olympics in Pyeongchang 2018 – including from Germany. Aileen Frisch competed in luge for Team Korea. For this, she had taken on South Korean citizenship at the age of 24 and given up her German passport. South Korea also convinced three Russian-born players to join the biathlon team. National soccer teams also repeatedly bring in players from other countries. However, these transfers rarely involve stars. Usually, athletes who do not have a chance in their home country transfer. Aileen Frisch, for example, ended her career early because it had not turned out to be as successful as she had hoped. And unlike Gu, the passport issue was not an open question.
Eileen Gu, meanwhile, is not the only new addition to Team China. The People’s Republic also recruited figure skaters Beverly Zhu and Ashley Lin from the United States. Years ago, China’s sports officials launched a “naturalization project” for the Winter Games to recruit top athletes of Chinese origin abroad. As the Economist found out, Zhu and Lin were recruited after the first option failed. Alysa Liu, who was initially chosen, was the daughter of a dissident who fled China in 1989. The father objected.
Less strategic was the inclusion of 15 Canadians, US Americans, and Russians in China’s ice hockey team. Since the Ice Hockey World Federation IIHF doubted the performance of the Chinese national team, a hectic search was conducted to find a suitable team. Finally, a squad consisting exclusively of players from the Chinese first division club Kunlun Red Star was announced, with 15 foreign players. “Most of them have Chinese roots,” says Mark Dreyer, who has just written a book called Sporting Superpower about China’s huge sporting ambitions.
After two years in a host country league, athletes would be allowed to compete for that country under Olympic rules, Dreyer told China.Table. “If someone has competed for another country before, it’s four years. But that wasn’t the case for any of them.” But just as with Gu, no one knows exactly what the citizenship of the 15 chosen athletes is, he said.
The citizenship question is “incredibly opaque,” says Dreyer. All sorts of theories are circulating – that the players only gave up their passports temporarily or China granted them “citizenship without a document.” It seems unlikely that 15 men simply spontaneously traded in their home country’s passports permanently for a Chinese passport – even if that offered the unexpected chance to suddenly become an Olympian.
Mark Dreyer is sure that hockey players will be confronted with the citizenship question again and again during the Olympics. Eileen Gu, despite her tender age, has apparently become adept at shrugging off the question. However, it is uncertain whether the hockey players who unexpectedly find themselves in the spotlight will also manage to do the same. In any case, no one seems to be interested in a transparent regulation.
The first Olympic weekend is over, the first medals have been awarded. And China has already won one gold medal – in its core category, short track.
The assessment of the Winter Olympics in Beijing could hardly be more different in China and the West. For the Chinese leadership, the Games are first and foremost a great prestige success. Beijing is able to showcase a modern and high-tech nation that is capable of perfectly organizing the world’s largest sporting event, even under pandemic conditions. In Europe and the USA, on the other hand, human rights violations in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, a strict zero covid policy, the political boycott of the Olympics, and the silence of the IOC on all these issues dominate the media coverage. The discussions about the Olympic Games illustrate impressively how far China and the West have drifted apart in the meantime.
In contrast to the Summer Games 14 years ago, China’s status as a major power is fully established. Hosting major international events has become a given. Shortly before the opening ceremony, Chinese state media show a sometimes contemplative-looking President Xi Jinping, who at the meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach at the end of January merely emphasized the goal of delivering “simple, safe and splendid” Olympics. This modest tone is a striking departure from the bombastic presentation of newly built sports venues and brightly colored Olympic coverage on China’s specially created state television channel. The playful atmosphere of the opening ceremony and the self-confident portrayal of the unity of the Chinese people make it clear that “proving” something to the world is apparently no longer the primary concern of the political leadership in Beijing.
Rather, the Olympic Games represent the new global China to the world. After all, Chinese players are now represented in almost every region of the world, and China’s government is very active in most international organizations. “China goes global” is old news. But the fact that the world is now also becoming more Chinese is still a concept that takes some getting used to. In this sense, the Winter Games illustrate the Chinese leadership’s goal of achieving global discourse supremacy. Especially under Xi, it is not just a matter of setting the agenda in international forums or positioning own ideas. Instead, the focus is on adapting the content of existing discourses, such as the concept of the “Olympic spirit” (spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play), to make them compatible with a Chinese understanding. As a result, the Olympic Games will also become quite a bit more Chinese.
This observation has serious consequences for the IOC: The political leadership indeed uses the sporting event to present China’s alternative path to modernization to the world – especially in opposition to Western liberal democracies. But the main interest is to adapt the Olympic Games to China itself and not vice versa. So whoever awards the Games to China must be able to decode the changing political mix, to identify when the interests of Olympic sport, and when the interests of the Chinese Communist Party are being represented. The mantra-like repetition of neutrality in almost every public statement by the IOC underscores that the IOC lacks China expertise. Despite its long-standing relations with the People’s Republic, it once again demonstrates that China experience does not equal China expertise.
China’s leadership itself seems to be just as resistant to criticism as the IOC. Anyone who believes that Beijing is under pressure to explain itself because of massive criticism of internment camps in Xinjiang or the suppression of democratic forces in Hong Kong is mistaken. On the contrary, any foreign criticism is followed by a reflexive reaction of indignation and counter-criticism. Here, too, China is following its own logic. So Western outrage over the fact that Dinigeer Yilamujiang, an athlete of Uyghur origin, lit the Olympic flame goes unnoticed in China. All in all, the idea that the Chinese leadership wants to “clear its name” of accusations of human rights violations with perfectly staged Olympics is inaccurate.
How should the discussion about a political boycott of the Winter Games be understood against this background? There are good reasons for a boycott. Several EU MEPs have recently put this into strong words. A boycott is not just a symbolic measure. It is likely to have at least a certain effect because it certainly diminishes the propaganda value of the Olympics for the communist party.
However, honesty also includes the fact that a boycott expresses a clear stance, but does not change anything about the situation in Xinjiang or Hong Kong. Ultimately, the heated boycott debate shortly before the Games is hypocritical, since many grievances in China were known long before the 2015 Winter Games were awarded. A boycott is also not a particularly courageous political move, but above all, a decision based on moral motives that divide European states in their stance toward China. Only a few governments are following the US lead with a political boycott. Others justify their absence with the Covid pandemic – including Germany.
The boycott discussion lacks strategic deliberation. There are many good reasons for policymakers to travel to China right now, without being naïve. With the absence of European politicians, the opportunity to stand up to Xi Jinping and to counter the symbolic solidarity between Xi and Russia’s President Putin with other imagery is lost. Furthermore, the opportunity to take clear positions on the ground is wasted. After all, Xi – unlike the athletes – cannot silence foreign heads of state and government. Not only was the opportunity to support the Olympic athletes missed, but also to repeatedly emphasize that the government will not turn a blind eye to what is happening in other parts of China.
The discussions surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics are also a pointer to the dilemmas that Western governments are increasingly facing when dealing with China. To make matters worse, national debates about China are becoming increasingly moralized. Most of the time, it’s just a matter of reinforcing each other’s political commitments that lack an alternative. This black-and-white thinking overly limits the political scope for action of Western governments. For example, participation in the Olympic Games can no longer be politically justified because it has already been morally condemned. All obligations to express clear criticism of human rights violations notwithstanding, either-or positions, which increasingly characterize the China debate in Germany as well, lead to a dead end. They significantly impede a more strategic and forward-looking approach when dealing with China.
Nadine Godehardt is the Deputy Head of the Research Division Asia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. Maximilian Mayer is a Professor at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn.
Nails are actually a handy invention and an indispensable part of the DIY world. They also hold a lot of things together – linguistically. In English, for example, the nail appears in expressions such as “hitting the nail on the head,” “nail your colors to the mast,” “hard as nails,” or “everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor.”
And in Chinese? In Chinese, it is best not to encounter a nail (钉子 dīngzi). In ancient China, a doornail is said to have always been placed above the front doors of residences of influential official families. If ordinary people knocked on the door with a personal request and were ignored, they would only see the doornail instead of the person they had hoped to talk to. This gave rise to the expression 碰钉子 pèng dīngzi – “to encounter a nail” – in English: “to get the brush-off” or “to be turned down”.
But there are a couple of other interesting nail expressions that are worth hammering into your head. For example, if someone speaks of “placing a nail” (安钉子 ān dīngzi) in Chinese, they mean placing one of your own in the enemy’s ranks. The phrase 拔钉子 (bá dīngzi) means not only “to pull a nail” but also, figuratively, to remove obstacles out of one’s way. And if there is a nail in the eye (眼中钉 yǎnzhōngdīng) – in English one would speak here of a “thorn in the side” – there is the need to remove a foreign element (拔去眼中钉 báqù yǎnzhōngdīng “to get a person out of the way who is a thorn in one’s eye”).
But once a nail is hammered into a board (板上钉钉 bǎnshàng dìngdīng), something is considered “firmly agreed” or “finally fixed”. And once hammered in, nails are hard to pull back out, as we all know. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a resolute and decisive person is also called 斩钉截铁 (zhǎndīngjiétiě) – “cutting nails and cutting metal” – in Chinese.
But the most stubborn member of the nail cabal comes last. In recent years, it has even made it into the headlines of domestic and foreign media. We are talking about homeowners who stubbornly resist demolition and relocation plans by authorities and urban planners. In China, such resistant naysayers are called 钉子户 (dīngzihù) – “nail households“.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
did the stray dove symbolize Taiwan? At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday, one of the participating children seemed to be too late to join the others to form the bright bird figure. It had to be taken by the hand, so it could find its way into the grand harmony. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait largely interpreted this as a political message. The resulting debate again demonstrates that this year’s Olympics are politically charged. Similarly controversial was the choice to let an Uyghur woman carry the torch to light the Olympic fire. Sports fans and athletes, on the other hand, want the Olympics to be held in a less delicate environment. After all, the only thing that is supposed to matter is who is the highest, the fastest, and the strongest.
An expert in sporting excellence is the distinguished ski coach Michael Brunner. He has plenty of tournament experience himself. China.Table spoke with him because he has been on a special assignment over recent years. He was tasked to quickly groom a generation of Chinese ski athletes. The talents he was mentoring were very athletic, but some of them had never been on snow before: young martial artists, dancers or gymnasts. Brunner was thus tasked with transforming typically Chinese talents into winter athletes. He told Michael Radunski about his experiences during the retraining of splits masters to downhill skiers.
By the way, Vladimir Putin also skis himself. His personal downhill coach was the former president of the Russian Olympic Committee. So Putin is probably also interested in the competitions. As a power politician, however, he has traveled to Beijing for a different reason. By getting China’s support, he is strengthening his position in the dispute over NATO’s eastward expansion and Ukraine. Xi has now promised Putin the desired support against the West. Read more about the two eastern powers joining forces in our analysis.
Who is Chinese? Under the red flag with the five stars, numerous athletes who grew up in other countries take part in the Olympics. Christiane Kuehl investigates the question to what extent the immigration authorities make exceptions in the interpretation of citizenship to benefit the medal table.
Although you will not find a medal table here, we still wish to keep you up to date on important Chinese achievements at irregular intervals. Other media only tend to focus on their country’s medals.
The Winter Olympics in Beijing have begun. Now it’s all about medals – and this is precisely where China has a problem. At the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, the athletes of the People’s Republic won only one meager gold medal. This does not reflect China’s image of itself under Xi Jinping. A medal table in which they win as few golds as Slovakia or Hungary and fewer than Belarus or the Czech Republic is not something Beijing wants to see again. “They got the Winter Olympics and then realized that they have no ski athletes at all.” That is Michael Brunner’s bitter diagnosis.
Brunner knows what he’s talking about. He used to be close to the world’s alpine top himself and was part of the German national team at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer. He now runs a ski school in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Brunner is undoubtedly an expert in his field. But the call from China came as something of a surprise. The former World Cup racer was to find China’s alpine medal contenders. “The Chinese then simply set up a program. The order from the top was: We want to have so and so many people in four years. Here’s the budget. Make it happen.” And Brunner got to work. In August 2018, Brunner flies to China, traveling to the ends of this vast country: to Nanning, to a city near the border to Vietnam where it never snows. Or to Kashgar, on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Brunner is organizing what is probably the biggest casting in sports history: Who will become China’s ski ace?
Mr. Brunner, how did your work in China go?
I visited the local sports boarding schools, huge areas with several halls. You can hardly imagine the scale on which this is done in China. And they put 250 children aged 14 to 18 in each of them.
What kind of athletes were they?
These were athletes who were already very successful, but because of their constitution, their abilities, or something else, they didn’t make it into the global elite. For example, gymnasts who had grown too tall. They were all highly motivated because they suddenly had another chance for success.
That sounds brilliant: experienced and motivated athletes.
However, the problem was that they all came from completely different sports: wrestlers, gymnasts, kung-fu fighters, and dancers. Wildly thrown together.
Did some already have experience in skiing?
No, not at all. None of them had ever stood on skis, let alone seen snow.
But what do you do with such a colorful bunch? What was your approach?
We have made tests: coordination, speed, endurance. The physiognomy was assessed. Bowlegs, for example, are not acceptable, because the risk of an anterior cruciate ligament injury is far too great. And we played soccer with them. But we were not allowed to say ‘play’, everything was much too serious. That’s why I spoke of ‘body move check’. And at the end, there were 40 athletes left.
They brought their own aptitude test, so to speak – and those who didn’t pass this test were kicked out?
It wasn’t that simple. I also learned a lot in the process and had to adapt.
How?
For example, the gymnast from Nanning shows you a double somersault from a standing position, but while his ankles are very strong, they are not flexible enough for skiing. Or the dancer who goes down smoothly into the splits, but can’t manage the internal rotation in his hips. These are all things that you only know afterward. There’s no textbook on how to go from dancer to skier. Or preferably, to an Olympic champion right away.
With the chosen ones, you then went to Garmisch to your ski school.
No, no. It wasn’t that simple. Originally, I was only in charge of the training. But when I asked if they had already arranged accommodation, transport or visas, the answer was: No, we haven’t. So I took care of all that, too, because I was really interested in the project.
But the Chinese side at least had a clear goal: medals at the Olympic Games.
I told them quite frankly, this goal will be very difficult to achieve.
Very difficult or not at all?
Not at all. Look, here in Germany, most people stop at the age of 14. Our Chinese only just start at the age of 14.
What does this mean for China’s medal chances?
I explained to the Chinese that in Europe, children start skiing at the age of three or four and go to the slopes for several days and several hours every year. So at that age, they all already have thousands of hours of skiing in their bones. And then the Chinese told me: ‘It’s very simple. From now on, we ski 365 days a year, train seven days, six hours a day, then we’ll have the number of hours in a short time.’
Very good. Mathematically, that’s about right.
Sure. But sports is not mathematics. That’s clear to them. The boys and girls also need to regenerate.
And that’s where you stood your ground?
Yes, almost always. There were no problems at all with the athletes, but it was difficult with the officials.
What happened?
They actually wanted to go through with their math plan. One day we were going to the slopes in the morning and the kids could barely walk up the stairs. The whole ski day was ruined. When I asked what had happened last night, they told me that the Chinese supervisor had ordered strength training. What nonsense. That’s just happening. So our goal was for the athletes to meet the Olympic standard.
And how did the training go, especially in the beginning?
We had to start from scratch. Even before Garmisch, my assistants in Beijing showed the athletes how to get into the ski boots and strap on the skis. Then, with us, we also went up to the Zugspitze.
How did the communication go?
There were translators, but we quickly realized that we had to keep commands and instructions simple. You don’t get very far with technical terminology. But that was no problem.
What was the relationship with the athletes like then?
Very good. I am still in contact with many of them. We write to each other regularly. We have grown attached to the boys and girls. And they said we were really nice coaches, which seems to be very unusual.
But then you quit after just one year. Why?
It became harder and harder. They actually wanted to ski 365 days a year and keep changing my training schedule. In addition, there was a change of supervisors and officials every four weeks. Each time I then had to explain everything all over again. That’s more talking than training. You have to sit at the desk all day, write everything down and justify it. They wanted to know everything. But my knowledge stays in my head. I’m a practical person who works with the athletes on the slopes and passes things on that way.
What is your conclusion?
From a sporting aspect, it was very exciting. The progress on the slopes was huge. From being hardly able to get into the ski boots to achieving the Olympic standard. The boys and girls are now skiing a good slalom down a steep slope. Four of my athletes are in the Olympics.
So there will be medals for China in the slalom and downhill after all?
Not that. They will more likely drive under the radar. But nevertheless, they have achieved the standard. You have to pull that off first. That’s a great success.
Xi Jinping currently has several reasons to celebrate: The Chinese Spring Festival marks the beginning of the new year; these are the most important holidays in the People’s Republic. In addition, the Winter Olympics are held in Beijing, making it the first city ever to host both the Winter and Summer Games. And politically, China’s head of state also has reason to rejoice: His good friend Vladimir Putin has come to visit, especially for the Olympic opening ceremony. Russia’s president wants to let the world know: Relations between China and Russia have “taken on a truly unprecedented character.”
A glance at Xi’s foreign policy diary shows just how important Putin’s visit is: he has not met a world leader in person since the Corona pandemic began almost two years ago. For Putin, however, Xi is now leaving his self-imposed diplomatic Corona quarantine. “For China, Putin’s visit is an important demonstration of support at a time when the US, UK, and other countries are undertaking a diplomatic boycott of the Games,” says David Shullmann, Senior Director of the Global China Hub of the think tank Atlantic Council in Washington. Consequently, China’s media are also celebrating the Olympic meeting of Xi and Putin with euphoria, claiming that it opens a new chapter in the relations between the two nations.
Putin left no doubt about this during his visit. He said that he had known Xi Jinping for a long time and that “as good friends and politicians who share many common views on solving world problems” they had a similar view of global politics.
The two leaders also revealed this view in a joint statement. It bristles with mutual support against the West: Xi and Putin call for a halt to NATO expansion in Eastern Europe and a limit to the growing influence of the United States in the Indo-Pacific, as it endangers peace and stability. They expressed serious concern about the growing military cooperation between the United States, the UK, Australia, and Japan (China.Table reported).
China has also recently taken an unusually clear stand on Russia’s side in the escalating Ukraine conflict. Foreign Minister Wang Yi described Russia’s security concerns as “legitimate” and should be taken seriously by everyone. Beijing is eagerly awaiting further developments in the Donbas. If Moscow’s military escapades should succeed without much resistance from the West, Beijing could draw parallels for its own plans regarding Taiwan’s reintegration into the People’s Republic.
What the Kremlin announced as a “vision for international security policy” is basically a securitized closing of ranks against the West. China and Russia are increasingly forming a bloc against a world order led by the United States. Yuri Ushakov, adviser to the Russian leadership, said in Moscow a few days ago that Russia and China both believe that it was necessary to create a more just and rational world order.
According to Chinese political expert Ruan Zongze of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), “Both countries show their determination to maintain global justice in a multipolar world, while the US imposes its ideology on others under the guise of multilateralism and interferes in states to assert its own hegemony.”
His choice of words is striking: justice, rational, multipolar. These are terms that show that the two authoritarian heads of state start to believe themselves to be morally superior and that they are using this to position themselves against the liberal world order of the West.
Putin’s visit to Beijing is the 38th meeting of the two heads of state since 2013 – and Russia’s president has not only brought wordy declarations to Beijing but also power contracts. Among other things, China is to receive an additional ten billion cubic meters of gas per year. By comparison, Russia supplied around 16 billion cubic meters of gas to the People’s Republic in 2021. That is almost twice the volume (China.Table reported). But more interesting than the pure volume will be the price at which Beijing will purchase Russian gas. Because when it comes to money, the much-vaunted Chinese-Russian friendship reached its limits fairly quickly in the past.
Nevertheless, it is clear that both sides benefit from the current gas deal: Xi, because his power-hungry economy urgently needs the gas. Above all, to become CO2-neutral by 2060, China needs to get away from its dirty coal as soon as possible. And Putin, because the West is now threatening further sanctions in the Ukraine conflict, and gas supplies to China offer an alternative export route. However, Putin will not be able to simply divert European supplies because the gas for China does not come from the same sources as the gas for Europe.
Far more important than the ten billion cubic meters of gas now agreed on are the plans to build the “Power of Siberia 2” gas pipeline: With a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters per year, it would not only dramatically increase Russia’s gas exports to China in one fell swoop, but due to its connection to the Yamal gas field it would also enter into direct competition with gas supplies to Europe.
Another important aspect of the current meeting is the two countries’ efforts to facilitate monetary transactions between the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan, which Vladimir Putin mentioned in a guest article for the Chinese news agency Xinhua. This, too, is a clear pointer to the West, which is threatening to exclude Moscow from the international payment system Swift over the Ukraine conflict.
Overall, trade between China and Russia has increased massively in recent years – from around $10 billion in 2001 to $140 billion in 2021, as the Chinese Ministry of Commerce recently announced. Overall, however, the ratios in this area are clearly distributed – apart from power supplies, Russia is of exceedingly little economic relevance for China.
Although joint exercises and the bilateral arms trade are steadily increasing, the balance of power is visibly shifting here as well. Until the last decade, Moscow was able to profitably sell slightly outdated equipment such as SU-35 jets or S-400 missiles to Beijing. But China has long since caught up – as recent progress in the development of hypersonic weapons shows (China.Table reported). And so Moscow is increasingly finding itself in the position of junior partner in this area as well.
All in all, Russia is much more dependent on China in the current situation than vice versa, said Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Center in Moscow at a discussion panel a few days ago. Beijing is very pragmatic and has many levers at its disposal in its relationship with Russia, he said. “China’s negotiating position is improving day by day. So it is better to make a deal with China today than tomorrow,” Gabuev says.
Relations between China and Russia are indeed better than ever – and this is primarily because of the West. The disputes along the common border have been settled. In addition, the two states are growing closer together politically and economically. And the personal aspect should not be underestimated in this case: Xi and Putin are very similar – as strong men at the head of authoritarian states and endowed with theoretically unlimited office terms, they both see themselves on a mission.
However, it is highly doubtful whether the two are actually friends. The two sides reach their limits too far quickly in individual areas. To make matters worse, the Sino-Russian balance of power is shifting more and more in Beijing’s favor, posing potential conflicts – both in Central Asia and in the Arctic. Thus, it is currently primarily the geopolitical tensions with the liberal West that are bringing China and Russia ever closer.
A video sparked the debate. It shows Eileen Gu opening a large cardboard box in her room, pulling out her uniforms for the Chinese ski freestyle team: jackets, hoodies, gloves, caps. Together with China’s freestyle coach Jaime Melton, she celebrates the fitting like on a catwalk – and posts it on Instagram and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok sister. The clothing is sponsored by Anta, a manufacturer that is considered patriotic (China.Table reported). “We got our Olympic gear today & I wanted to let u all know that we’re the best runway models in the Olympic village,” Gu wrote about the video on Instagram.
Eileen Gu received almost 20,000 likes on Instagram and about twice as many on Douyin. The 18-year-old is the gold standard in ski freestyle. And since the American-born skier decided to compete for China at the 2019 Olympics, she’s been a superstar in her mother’s home country. But she never answered one question: Does she hold the Chinese citizenship? And if so, did she turn in her US citizenship? Or was she allowed to keep both passports?
But that is actually forbidden in China for people over the age of 18. Eileen Gu turned 18 on September 3 last year. “In China, I’m Chinese; in the US, I’m American,” she says again and again in many different ways. Her continued silence on the matter of citizenship only fuels the suspicion that there may have been a very special solution for her.
In the hype surrounding Gu as a trendy gold medal contender, this question remained unimportant in China for a surprisingly long time. But her video at the beginning of the Olympics triggered a debate on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. The South China Morning Post took a closer look at the comments. According to one opinion, dual citizenship is fine “as long as the Chinese flag is raised in the award ceremony when she becomes champion. At least she’s willing to share her champion title with China.” “Does it matter? She is of mixed heritage and has sentimental ties to both sides,” another said.
The newspaper cites only one article that raises the possible unequal treatment of Gu and ordinary citizens. Is it a double standard to “celebrate an athlete with dual citizenship?”
China is far from an open debate on the introduction of the dual passport. This raises the question: Did Beijing simply make a pragmatic decision by not asking Eileen Gu to give up her US passport after her 18th birthday, contrary to common practice? Was there a deal? Or did Gu refuse to hand it over, knowing her importance to China at the Olympics? Could China even force her to surrender the passport?
There are no answers. But there are at least indications that Gu still holds her US passport. Her name never appeared on the US Treasury Department’s register of expatriated Americans, writes the British magazine Economist in a long article about Gu’s balancing act between East and West. Red Bull, one of Gu’s main sponsors, had initially written on its website that Gu had “decided to give up her American passport.” But when a Wall Street Journal reporter called the company for confirmation, Red Bull removed the passage, the Economist said.
Gu is the daughter of a Beijing woman and a US man, but the latter had left the family. She grew up in a wealthy background in California. She was surrounded by local trends that attracted her, including the free-spirited Freestyle scene. On the other hand, she was raised by her mother and Chinese grandmother. She is fluent in both languages and has always balanced between worlds. Years before she decided to compete for China, Gu had already been in touch with China’s ski scene through her mother.
Since her switch, Eileen Gu has become a superstar in China and received lucrative advertising contracts there (China.Table reported). She has 1.3 million followers on Weibo – compared to “only” 250,000 on Instagram. Gu does not comment on the political situation in China. A few months after the Olympics, she plans to study at California’s elite Stanford University. It doesn’t seem as if the freestyle star wants to turn her back on the USA.
Time and again, athletes compete at the Olympics for nations in which they were not born. South Korea also secured support for the Olympics in Pyeongchang 2018 – including from Germany. Aileen Frisch competed in luge for Team Korea. For this, she had taken on South Korean citizenship at the age of 24 and given up her German passport. South Korea also convinced three Russian-born players to join the biathlon team. National soccer teams also repeatedly bring in players from other countries. However, these transfers rarely involve stars. Usually, athletes who do not have a chance in their home country transfer. Aileen Frisch, for example, ended her career early because it had not turned out to be as successful as she had hoped. And unlike Gu, the passport issue was not an open question.
Eileen Gu, meanwhile, is not the only new addition to Team China. The People’s Republic also recruited figure skaters Beverly Zhu and Ashley Lin from the United States. Years ago, China’s sports officials launched a “naturalization project” for the Winter Games to recruit top athletes of Chinese origin abroad. As the Economist found out, Zhu and Lin were recruited after the first option failed. Alysa Liu, who was initially chosen, was the daughter of a dissident who fled China in 1989. The father objected.
Less strategic was the inclusion of 15 Canadians, US Americans, and Russians in China’s ice hockey team. Since the Ice Hockey World Federation IIHF doubted the performance of the Chinese national team, a hectic search was conducted to find a suitable team. Finally, a squad consisting exclusively of players from the Chinese first division club Kunlun Red Star was announced, with 15 foreign players. “Most of them have Chinese roots,” says Mark Dreyer, who has just written a book called Sporting Superpower about China’s huge sporting ambitions.
After two years in a host country league, athletes would be allowed to compete for that country under Olympic rules, Dreyer told China.Table. “If someone has competed for another country before, it’s four years. But that wasn’t the case for any of them.” But just as with Gu, no one knows exactly what the citizenship of the 15 chosen athletes is, he said.
The citizenship question is “incredibly opaque,” says Dreyer. All sorts of theories are circulating – that the players only gave up their passports temporarily or China granted them “citizenship without a document.” It seems unlikely that 15 men simply spontaneously traded in their home country’s passports permanently for a Chinese passport – even if that offered the unexpected chance to suddenly become an Olympian.
Mark Dreyer is sure that hockey players will be confronted with the citizenship question again and again during the Olympics. Eileen Gu, despite her tender age, has apparently become adept at shrugging off the question. However, it is uncertain whether the hockey players who unexpectedly find themselves in the spotlight will also manage to do the same. In any case, no one seems to be interested in a transparent regulation.
The first Olympic weekend is over, the first medals have been awarded. And China has already won one gold medal – in its core category, short track.
The assessment of the Winter Olympics in Beijing could hardly be more different in China and the West. For the Chinese leadership, the Games are first and foremost a great prestige success. Beijing is able to showcase a modern and high-tech nation that is capable of perfectly organizing the world’s largest sporting event, even under pandemic conditions. In Europe and the USA, on the other hand, human rights violations in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, a strict zero covid policy, the political boycott of the Olympics, and the silence of the IOC on all these issues dominate the media coverage. The discussions about the Olympic Games illustrate impressively how far China and the West have drifted apart in the meantime.
In contrast to the Summer Games 14 years ago, China’s status as a major power is fully established. Hosting major international events has become a given. Shortly before the opening ceremony, Chinese state media show a sometimes contemplative-looking President Xi Jinping, who at the meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach at the end of January merely emphasized the goal of delivering “simple, safe and splendid” Olympics. This modest tone is a striking departure from the bombastic presentation of newly built sports venues and brightly colored Olympic coverage on China’s specially created state television channel. The playful atmosphere of the opening ceremony and the self-confident portrayal of the unity of the Chinese people make it clear that “proving” something to the world is apparently no longer the primary concern of the political leadership in Beijing.
Rather, the Olympic Games represent the new global China to the world. After all, Chinese players are now represented in almost every region of the world, and China’s government is very active in most international organizations. “China goes global” is old news. But the fact that the world is now also becoming more Chinese is still a concept that takes some getting used to. In this sense, the Winter Games illustrate the Chinese leadership’s goal of achieving global discourse supremacy. Especially under Xi, it is not just a matter of setting the agenda in international forums or positioning own ideas. Instead, the focus is on adapting the content of existing discourses, such as the concept of the “Olympic spirit” (spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play), to make them compatible with a Chinese understanding. As a result, the Olympic Games will also become quite a bit more Chinese.
This observation has serious consequences for the IOC: The political leadership indeed uses the sporting event to present China’s alternative path to modernization to the world – especially in opposition to Western liberal democracies. But the main interest is to adapt the Olympic Games to China itself and not vice versa. So whoever awards the Games to China must be able to decode the changing political mix, to identify when the interests of Olympic sport, and when the interests of the Chinese Communist Party are being represented. The mantra-like repetition of neutrality in almost every public statement by the IOC underscores that the IOC lacks China expertise. Despite its long-standing relations with the People’s Republic, it once again demonstrates that China experience does not equal China expertise.
China’s leadership itself seems to be just as resistant to criticism as the IOC. Anyone who believes that Beijing is under pressure to explain itself because of massive criticism of internment camps in Xinjiang or the suppression of democratic forces in Hong Kong is mistaken. On the contrary, any foreign criticism is followed by a reflexive reaction of indignation and counter-criticism. Here, too, China is following its own logic. So Western outrage over the fact that Dinigeer Yilamujiang, an athlete of Uyghur origin, lit the Olympic flame goes unnoticed in China. All in all, the idea that the Chinese leadership wants to “clear its name” of accusations of human rights violations with perfectly staged Olympics is inaccurate.
How should the discussion about a political boycott of the Winter Games be understood against this background? There are good reasons for a boycott. Several EU MEPs have recently put this into strong words. A boycott is not just a symbolic measure. It is likely to have at least a certain effect because it certainly diminishes the propaganda value of the Olympics for the communist party.
However, honesty also includes the fact that a boycott expresses a clear stance, but does not change anything about the situation in Xinjiang or Hong Kong. Ultimately, the heated boycott debate shortly before the Games is hypocritical, since many grievances in China were known long before the 2015 Winter Games were awarded. A boycott is also not a particularly courageous political move, but above all, a decision based on moral motives that divide European states in their stance toward China. Only a few governments are following the US lead with a political boycott. Others justify their absence with the Covid pandemic – including Germany.
The boycott discussion lacks strategic deliberation. There are many good reasons for policymakers to travel to China right now, without being naïve. With the absence of European politicians, the opportunity to stand up to Xi Jinping and to counter the symbolic solidarity between Xi and Russia’s President Putin with other imagery is lost. Furthermore, the opportunity to take clear positions on the ground is wasted. After all, Xi – unlike the athletes – cannot silence foreign heads of state and government. Not only was the opportunity to support the Olympic athletes missed, but also to repeatedly emphasize that the government will not turn a blind eye to what is happening in other parts of China.
The discussions surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics are also a pointer to the dilemmas that Western governments are increasingly facing when dealing with China. To make matters worse, national debates about China are becoming increasingly moralized. Most of the time, it’s just a matter of reinforcing each other’s political commitments that lack an alternative. This black-and-white thinking overly limits the political scope for action of Western governments. For example, participation in the Olympic Games can no longer be politically justified because it has already been morally condemned. All obligations to express clear criticism of human rights violations notwithstanding, either-or positions, which increasingly characterize the China debate in Germany as well, lead to a dead end. They significantly impede a more strategic and forward-looking approach when dealing with China.
Nadine Godehardt is the Deputy Head of the Research Division Asia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. Maximilian Mayer is a Professor at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn.
Nails are actually a handy invention and an indispensable part of the DIY world. They also hold a lot of things together – linguistically. In English, for example, the nail appears in expressions such as “hitting the nail on the head,” “nail your colors to the mast,” “hard as nails,” or “everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor.”
And in Chinese? In Chinese, it is best not to encounter a nail (钉子 dīngzi). In ancient China, a doornail is said to have always been placed above the front doors of residences of influential official families. If ordinary people knocked on the door with a personal request and were ignored, they would only see the doornail instead of the person they had hoped to talk to. This gave rise to the expression 碰钉子 pèng dīngzi – “to encounter a nail” – in English: “to get the brush-off” or “to be turned down”.
But there are a couple of other interesting nail expressions that are worth hammering into your head. For example, if someone speaks of “placing a nail” (安钉子 ān dīngzi) in Chinese, they mean placing one of your own in the enemy’s ranks. The phrase 拔钉子 (bá dīngzi) means not only “to pull a nail” but also, figuratively, to remove obstacles out of one’s way. And if there is a nail in the eye (眼中钉 yǎnzhōngdīng) – in English one would speak here of a “thorn in the side” – there is the need to remove a foreign element (拔去眼中钉 báqù yǎnzhōngdīng “to get a person out of the way who is a thorn in one’s eye”).
But once a nail is hammered into a board (板上钉钉 bǎnshàng dìngdīng), something is considered “firmly agreed” or “finally fixed”. And once hammered in, nails are hard to pull back out, as we all know. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a resolute and decisive person is also called 斩钉截铁 (zhǎndīngjiétiě) – “cutting nails and cutting metal” – in Chinese.
But the most stubborn member of the nail cabal comes last. In recent years, it has even made it into the headlines of domestic and foreign media. We are talking about homeowners who stubbornly resist demolition and relocation plans by authorities and urban planners. In China, such resistant naysayers are called 钉子户 (dīngzihù) – “nail households“.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
