Is it Possible to Represent a Country and Not Its Politics?

I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if you hadn’t heard of Eileen Gu before this past week. In the US, where she grew up and lives, she hasn’t had much of a public persona outside of the niche world of freestyle skiing, a sport in which she has become dominant over the past few years. She’s also young, at just 18 years old and not even in college yet.

I would be surprised if we aren’t hearing about ⁠ — and seeing ⁠ — her for at least the next decade, though. On Tuesday in Beijing, Gu won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle skiing’s Big Air event. That medal, however, went to China, stirring pride throughout the host country and controversy throughout the US.

In many ways, Americans are actually late to the discourse around Gu. She’s been a celebrity and model in China for years, and her gold medal only cemented that status. The Chinese social media site Weibo actually crashed briefly after her final run because so many people were talking about her. She’s also a popular model throughout the country, appearing on ads for everything from Louis Vuitton to a Mongolian diary company. Beijing News estimates that she earned over $15 million last year, making her the third highest-paid female athlete in the world.

Gu made the decision to start representing China in 2019, and almost immediately began generating controversy ⁠ — and outright hatred ⁠ — for the move. She has repeatedly said that she did so because she wanted to inspire young women throughout China, a country where winter sports like snowboarding are growing in popularity. Having been raised in the US by an American father and Chinese mother, she’s also fluent in both English and Mandarin and has said that she feels equally American and Chinese.

Gu is certainly not the first athlete raised in the US to represent another country in the Olympics. There are dozens of examples this year alone. Often, though, that decision is made by athletes that don’t have the skill to make the American team and/or want to represent a smaller country that they have some cultural connection to that otherwise would have little representation. Gu has raised so much controversy largely because she a) easily has the skills to represent the US and b) has actively chosen to represent a country that the US increasingly views as “the enemy.”

The US’s diplomatic boycott of the Beijing games has only made the political climate surrounding China even more pressing. The Chinese Community Party has been accused of genocide of the Uyghur people, as well as widespread censorship and stifling of human rights. For many Americans, Gu’s decision to represent China is both a betrayal and an outright endorsement of these policies by the CCP.

That logic is flawed, though. While it can be difficult to conceptually separate a foreign country from its government, that is exactly what we do domestically. After all, no one would suggest that an American athlete represents the current White House administration. That was abundantly clear in 2018, when Olympians represented the US in the middle of the tumult of the Trump administration. Some spoke out vocally against Trump. Some didn’t. Either way, we were willing to allow athletes to represent us without representing our politics.

Gu’s situation is of course much more complex than that of the US athletes in 2018. After all, she made a conscious decision to represent China instead of the US, and so far has dodged virtually every question about the CCP. She of course also has business interests that factor into her public persona. Still, at the end of the day, she may just be an 18-year-old who wants to represent a nation and people that she identifies with, without representing that nation’s government. Maybe that isn’t possible anymore. Maybe it never was. But maybe she’s proving that it is.

Further reading:

“Eileen Gu Is Trying to Soar Over the Geopolitical Divide,” New York Times

“Why Eileen Gu is luxury fashion’s dream model,” CNN

“I Used to Feel Guilty Rooting for China. Olympian Eileen Gu Vindicated Me.,” Cosmopolitan