NBC is walking a tightrope at the Beijing Games. The network is covering sports on ice and snow — and news on human rights and genocide.
One of the great guessing games before any Olympic Games is who will light the flame at the opening ceremony. The answer, at the Beijing Games, turned out to be Zhao Jiawen, of men’s Nordic combined, and Dinigeer Yilamujiang, of women’s cross-country skiing.
She is Uyghur, according to Chinese state media. (The Uyghurs are China’s Muslim ethnic minority who are victims of genocide, according to the United States; that is one of the reasons that the U.S. is boycotting these Games diplomatically.)
Mike Tirico, NBC’s Olympics host, quickly noted the significance of the flame lighting during the live broadcast of the opening ceremony, which aired on Friday morning in the U.S., and which will repeat Friday evening. “Of course, those are the people from the region of Northwest China that have attracted so much attention in the conversation of human rights,” Tirico said, reporting from the scene.
Savannah Guthrie, the NBC anchor who reported from the U.S., put a sharper point on China’s choice. “It’s quite provocative,” she said. “It is a statement from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to choose an athlete from the Uyghur minority. It is an in-your-face response to Western nations, including the U.S., who have called the Chinese treatment of that group genocide.”
By one count, NBC mentioned the Uyghur people 16 times during the opening ceremony, half of those in reaction to the Uyghur athlete lighting the flame, and used the word “genocide” eight times.
When NBC returned from a commercial break after the flame lighting, Tirico said, “This certainly will be a part of the conversation, not just how it was lit, but more importantly who was doing the lighting.”
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The hosts asked for reaction from China expert Andy Browne, editorial director of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. He said the selection of an Uyghur athlete was a way for China to double down in the face of Western criticism.
“Never let an insult go unanswered,” Browne said. “This was a riposte to President Joe Biden for skipping these Olympics and a message to the West: China won’t be lectured to on human rights, or on any other issue.”
USA TODAY Sports contacted Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur human rights advocate and Yale World Fellow. She was traveling by train and had not yet heard about the lighting of the flame. She said she was surprised at the news.
“The selection of an Uyghur torchbearer is a deliberate attempt to whitewash genocide, adding insult to injury for millions,” she said. “But it also shows that China cares enough about international criticism to try to defend itself with this choice.”
Asat said the selection of a Uyghur athlete reminded her of the case of Helene Mayer, the only German athlete of Jewish origin to win a medal at the Berlin Games. She gave a Nazi salute at the medal ceremony.
“She later claimed the gesture might have saved her family in the camps,” Asat said. “Today might not be 1936, and China might not be Nazi Germany, but we are witnessing a repetition of history unlike anything we’ve seen before. We should not wait for the comparison to become easier.”
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Sean Roberts is director of the International Development Studies program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the author of “The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority.”
“Over the last few years, the Chinese government has run an intensive propaganda campaign to convince the world that Uyghurs are treated well inside the country,” Roberts said. “The use of a Uyghur to light the flame is an overt part of this campaign while also serving as a way to snub its nose at the countries that have criticized the crimes against humanity that the People’s Republic of China has been committing against Uyghurs since 2017.”
Asat said she wanted to “talk about another Olympic torchbearer, Kemalturk Yalkun, who represented China in 2008 — and whose father is currently serving a 15-year sentence.”
Yalkun was among a number of students who were chosen to carry the flame on its journey before the Summer Games in Beijing. His father, an editor of Uyghur literature, was arrested and imprisoned. His alleged crime: attempting to “subvert” the Chinese state.
“This shows that China is scared,” Asat said of the flame lighting. “The opening ceremony is its message to the world, and it put Uyghurs at the center, flailing in its lie that everything is fine. The Chinese Communist Party cares profoundly about outside criticism, so let’s keep criticizing.”
NBC got off to a good start at the opening ceremonies. Let the Games begin — and the Uyghurs be remembered.
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