2022.02.02 北京冬奥会的外交抵制的缺陷

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By Invitation | Sport and politics
Sebastian Coe on the flawed diplomatic boycott of Beijing’s Winter Olympics
Sporting events can foster debate and discussion—tools critical for preventing conflict
By Sebastian Coe


Feb 2nd 2022


With fanfare and fireworks, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games will begin on February 4th. But many officials will be missing from the opening ceremony. Countries including Britain, America and Australia are instigating a diplomatic boycott of the Games. They are wasting an opportunity to engage with their Chinese counterparts on the issues that matter to them.

If we agree that discussion and diplomacy are the best ways to resolve or avoid conflict, then I believe that there should be more consistency in how these governments behave. It does not make sense to impose diplomatic boycotts on China when the winter games could facilitate both.


The world of sport should never be coy or naive about moral and ethical issues. The Winter Olympic Games attract some 3,000 athletes from 91 countries and provide ample opportunity for diplomacy. I helped to organise the Olympics in London almost a decade ago. I know full well that many countries that competed did so while holding their noses over British foreign policy at the time. Yet there was no talk of a boycott—athletic or diplomatic. Instead in meetings around the London games those issues and tensions, some of which related to Britain’s involvement in Iraq, were discussed robustly.

Sport used properly is a deft component of soft power. At the Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad in 2003 I witnessed foreign ministers from India and Pakistan reduce tensions between their two countries by talking on the margins of the sporting event. And in 2018 at the last Winter Olympic Games in South Korea’s Pyeongchang, North Korean and South Korean athletes entered the opening ceremony together under one flag.

I have my own experience, too. I didn’t just live through the boycott of Moscow’s Olympic Games in 1980—which involved dozens of countries and was organised by America. I was at the centre of it. My father, who was my coach, was called in for a chat by a young minister in the Foreign Office, Douglas Hurd (who went on to become Britain’s foreign secretary). He wanted my father to encourage me to be less vocal about my opposition to a proposed British boycott of the games.

Ultimately, I was one of the lucky ones. The British Olympic Association stood tall and independent in the face of huge pressure from the government not to attend. But I also know athletes from around the world who were less lucky. Athletes who had devoted half their young lives in the preparation had their efforts, and the sacrifices of their families, ripped asunder because National Olympic Committees ultimately bowed to that pressure.


Mercifully, the landscape has changed since then. Almost every National Olympic Committee has withstood the pressure to call for a boycott of the winter games in Beijing by athletes (though some may not attend for other reasons). This is why, in certain cases, the diplomatic boycott has been adopted. The significance of huge sporting competitions makes them obvious targets for politicians around the world. They sometimes attack these contests in intellectually dishonest ways—even when they have no role in them and have not been invited to attend them.

For all its occasional mutations, sport is a powerful vehicle for social and cultural progress. Redefining our sporting relationships based on either short- or long-term judgments about political systems risks dismantling international sport. To those countries that have declared a meaningless diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing I pose two questions. How can politicians call for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics but still send their ambassadors or other serving diplomats to represent them? And how does this boycott help their mission in China? If lawmakers are serious about finding answers and changing policies then they should use all avenues of discourse available to them—and that includes sport.■
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Sebastian Coe is president of World Athletics, the governing body of international athletics. He has also served as an mp in Britain’s parliament and was president of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. As an athlete he won four Olympic medals for middle-distance running.




应邀参加｜体育与政治
塞巴斯蒂安-科谈对北京冬奥会的外交抵制的缺陷
体育赛事可以促进辩论和讨论--这是预防冲突的关键工具
作者：塞巴斯蒂安-科


2022年2月2日

北京2022年冬奥会将于2月4日在大张旗鼓的焰火中开幕。但许多官员将在开幕式上缺席。包括英国、美国和澳大利亚在内的国家正在煽动对奥运会的外交抵制。他们正在浪费一个与中国同行就他们所关心的问题进行接触的机会。

如果我们同意讨论和外交是解决或避免冲突的最佳方式，那么我认为这些政府的行为方式应该更加一致。在冬季运动会可以促进两者发展的情况下，对中国实行外交抵制是没有意义的。


体育界在道德和伦理问题上决不应该腼腆或天真。冬奥会吸引了来自91个国家的约3000名运动员，为外交工作提供了充足的机会。近十年前，我帮助组织了伦敦奥运会。我清楚地知道，许多参加比赛的国家是在当时对英国的外交政策捏着鼻子做的。然而，没有人谈论抵制--运动或外交抵制。相反，在围绕伦敦奥运会举行的会议上，这些问题和紧张局势，其中一些与英国在伊拉克的参与有关，得到了热烈的讨论。

体育使用得当是软实力的一个巧妙组成部分。2003年在海德拉巴举行的亚非运动会上，我目睹了印度和巴基斯坦的外交部长通过在体育赛事的间隙进行交谈来缓解两国之间的紧张关系。而在2018年韩国平昌的上一届冬奥会上，朝鲜和韩国的运动员在一面旗帜下共同进入开幕式。

我也有自己的经历。我不仅经历了1980年抵制莫斯科奥运会的事件--该事件涉及几十个国家，而且是由美国组织的。我是其中的中心人物。我的父亲是我的教练，他被外交部的一位年轻部长道格拉斯-赫德（后来成为英国的外交大臣）叫去谈话。他想让我父亲鼓励我不要那么大声地反对英国抵制奥运会的提议。

最终，我是幸运儿之一。面对政府不参加的巨大压力，英国奥林匹克协会站得很高，很独立。但我也认识来自世界各地的运动员，他们没有那么幸运。运动员们在准备过程中付出了半生的精力，但由于国家奥委会最终屈服于这种压力，他们的努力和他们家庭的牺牲被撕碎了。


令人欣慰的是，从那时起，情况已经发生了变化。几乎每个国家的奥委会都顶住了压力，呼吁运动员抵制北京冬奥会（尽管有些运动员可能因为其他原因不参加）。这就是为什么在某些情况下，采取了外交抵制的方式。巨大的体育竞赛的意义使其成为世界各地政治家的明显目标。他们有时会以不诚实的方式攻击这些比赛--即使他们在比赛中没有角色，也没有被邀请参加比赛。

尽管体育偶尔会发生变异，但它是社会和文化进步的有力工具。根据对政治制度的短期或长期判断来重新定义我们的体育关系，有可能会瓦解国际体育。对于那些宣布对北京冬奥会进行毫无意义的外交抵制的国家，我提出了两个问题。政治家们如何能够呼吁对冬奥会进行外交抵制，但仍然派遣他们的大使或其他在职外交官来代表他们？而且这种抵制对他们在中国的任务有什么帮助？如果立法者真的想找到答案并改变政策，那么他们应该利用所有可用的话语渠道--这包括体育。
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塞巴斯蒂安-科是世界田径协会的主席，该协会是国际田径运动的管理机构。他还曾在英国议会担任议员，并担任伦敦奥运会和残奥会组织委员会主席。作为一名运动员，他在奥运会上赢得了四枚中长跑奖牌。