Quote:
Originally Posted by Teriyaki
Can someone explain how/why the parameters of choosing to represent another country? Since China doesn't recognize dual citizenship, how are Canadians or other citizens from countries like the US getting to just choose to represent a different country? Do you just need an Asian face and, bam? Or even worse, are there no real rules about your country of representation and a country can just "buy" their athletes?
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That's exactly what China and the IOC refuses to talk about. For this to work, one of the following has to happen:
1) The player / Olympic athlete either renounces his original citizenship and get naturalized as a Chinese citizen
2) The IOC grants the exception to allow a non-Chinese citizen to represent China in the Olympic Games
3) China disregards or grants an exception on its dual citizenship rule by allowing these players to retain their original citizenship while naturalizing them as Chinese citizen
My bet is they are doing #3 while conveniently sweeping all the messy details under the rug. Eileen Gu -- this all-star snow sports skier -- is representing China in the Winter Olympics despite being an American citizen (with a US dad and a Mainland Chinese Mom). Some US department is supposed to publish on an annual basis a list of all former American citizens who have renounced their US citizenship. People have looked into those records in the years prior to the Olympics, and they have not see this Miss Gu on the US citizenship renunciation list. And she conveniently coins the line that "When she is in China, she is a Chinese citizen, and when she is in US, she is American."
Representing another country in these national level games is hardly new. But I don't recall the same degree of sloppiness in following through the proper naturalization process in the past.