The Times - UK (2022-01-26)

slowly turning into a cult of

personality. To fail to act, though,

would mean the image of Pooh being

beamed to millions of Chinese people,

who would instantly understand its

subversive meaning.

Admittedly my plan is a tad

juvenile, but it’s worth recalling

George Orwell’s dictum that mockery

is often more dangerous than

weapons to totalitarian rulers.

Certainly, there is little I would love

more than to see the CCP squirm

with indecision, for high-level

meetings of the politburo to be

solemnly convened to figure out how

to stop athletes carrying soft toys

around venues, for the secret police to

carry out searches of the Olympic

village to confiscate items of Pooh

memorabilia. The CCP wants to look

people have been

victimised by the

network in recent years.

In this context, perhaps it is

little wonder that Human Rights

Watch, a normally fearless

campaigning organisation, has

warned athletes against speaking out

while in China. “There’s really not

much protection that we believe is

going to be afforded to athletes,” the

organisation said.

But this brings us back to Pooh. For

could the CCP really throw an athlete

in jail for merely wearing a Pooh T-

shirt? Could it intervene if people

carried cuddly toys into press

conferences? To act would be to

invite ridicule on the world stage and

shine a light on the paranoia that has

become endemic in a state that is

T

here are many familiar

symbols in sport. Liverpool

FC’s Liver Bird. The Nike

swoosh. The Manchester

United badge. An image I

would love to see more of in the

coming weeks, though, is that of

Winnie-the-Pooh, the honey-loving

bear created by the great AA Milne. I

would love to see athletes at the

Winter Olympics wearing Pooh

T-shirts and carrying Pooh cuddly

toys. Oh, and I’d love to see Pooh

iconography among spectators at the

Australian Open tennis too.

Why? Well, you may be aware that

Winnie is persona non grata in the

People’s Republic of China. A few

years ago, a couple of bloggers

likened the bear to President Xi

Jinping. As I understand it, the

comparison was affectionate, but it

was met with fury by the Chinese

Communist Party (CCP). References

to the bear were expunged by the

legions of censors who monitor

online activity. Indeed, such was the

panic that a film about Christopher

Robin was reportedly banned.

And this, I think, offers the chance

to engage in some overdue ridicule of

the ageing autocracy that rules over

nearly a fifth of the world’s

population. The politburo has made it

clear that any athletes at the Winter

Olympics will face retribution if they

Sport

Use ridicule as

a tool to make

China squirm

speak out on sensitive subjects such

as the persecution of the Uighurs.

“Any behaviour or speech that is

against the Olympic spirit, especially

against Chinese laws and regulations,

are subject to certain punishment,”

Yang Shu, the deputy director of

international relations for the

Beijing Organising Committee, said

last week.

The committee also announced

that athletes and journalists

entering the country will have

to download an app on to

their mobile phones that

could track their

movements and

communications. The

official reason is that the

app will help with Covid

contract tracing, but

security experts believe

it will be used by CCP

officials to monitor visitors

and clamp down on dissent.

According to one report, the

app could initiate a special file

with 2,442 keywords that would

trigger censorship.

You gain some sense of the

seriousness of the situation by

considering the sheer scale of

repression in China. According to one

estimate, 127 journalists are behind

bars, more than in any other nation.

Then there is the sinister “black jail

network” that sprang up in 2013 to

“disappear” critics of the regime. A

recent Sunday Times report told of Xie

Yang, a human rights lawyer, who was

shackled to a metal chair, hung from

the ceiling and told he would be

turned into an invalid if he didn’t

confess to his crimes. It is estimated

that between 27,000 and 57,000

strong and principled. Instead, it

would look repressive and paranoid.

But that brings me to perhaps the

most troubling thing of all — the

sense that the censorship of the CCP

has extended beyond its own borders.

I guess I was not alone in being

appalled to see the Australian Open

tennis committee initially ban T-

shirts emblazoned with the slogan:

“Where is Peng?” This is a reference

to the Chinese tennis player Peng

Shuai, who temporarily disappeared

after alleging sexual abuse by a senior

CCP official. The Australian

tournament committee, which has

commercial links to China, decided

that the message was political and

therefore inadmissible.

It is difficult to know where to start

with such a craven decision but

Martina Navratilova had the integrity

to point out that the T-shirt was not

making a political point but one

relating to human rights. Moreover,

Peng is an athlete who has graced the

Australian Open 15 times and added

much to the vibrancy of the event.

She deserved so much better. It is one

thing for a totalitarian regime to

engage in censorship but it’s quite

another for a grand-slam tournament

to do their dirty work for them.

Thankfully the decision was

reversed 24 hours later, but the story

highlights the extent to which sport

has been corrupted by the lust for

Chinese cash. Governing bodies see

the CCP as their route to lucrative

sponsorship contracts and are willing

to bend over backwards to avoid

offending them. For a stomach-

turning example, consider that when

Lord Coe was interviewed on the

Toda y programme last month and

asked if he agreed that Peng should

be allowed to leave China to verify

her wellbeing, he replied: “It is not my

position as president of World

Athletics to make those judgments.”

Why on earth not, Seb?

And this is why sport needs to wake

up. I agree with those who say that

sporting occasions should not be

turned into political events where

athletes and spectators take to soap

boxes to proselytise. Most of us have

more than enough politics in our

lives. But sport has moved too far in

the opposite direction, allowing the

hunger for Chinese money to warp its

core values. It’s a scandal that even

Pooh — a bear of “very little brain” —

would have grasped.

Matthew Syedyed

The Peng case raises fears about censorship in a country

where President Xi, left, has outlawed Winnie-the-Pooh

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565 V2 Wednesday January 26 2022 | the times