China’s state broadcaster CCTV pulled its Olympic coverage on Sunday to avoid showing Taiwan’s badminton team winning the gold medal after beating a top-ranked Chinese team.
Taiwan scored an upset victory in badminton when Li Yang and Wang Chi-ling defeated China’s Liang Wei-ken and Wang Qiang in the men’s doubles to win their first gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
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To find Taiwan’s champions online, one must search for “Chinese Taipei,” the name Beijing long ago forced on Taiwanese athletes at the Olympics. Taiwanese athletes are forced to compete under the Olympic symbol instead of their national flag. Flags, banners, towels and other items bearing authentic Taiwanese symbols are banned. Confiscated Crowds of condemnation erupted from spectators in Paris, while Chinese nationalists freely hoisted giant red Communist flags.
The top-seeded Chinese team seemed to take a fairly lenient attitude towards Taiwan’s close call with the silver medal. Said The 76-minute duel was “one of the most intense matches” he and Liang Weikeng have ever played, with neither team able to maintain a lead of more than four points throughout the badminton battle.
The Chinese Communist government was lacking in sportsmanship. Radio Free Asia (RFA) report China Central Television’s Olympic channel did not begin coverage until the Chinese team briefly took the lead midway through the marathon race, then cut off coverage once Taiwan had won.
China’s Sun Jiajun competes in the men’s 4x100m medley relay final at the Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, on Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
CCTV also chose not to show jubilant fans in the stands chanting “Taiwan Number One!”, and chose to broadcast the men’s gymnastics instead of the badminton awards ceremony, treating China’s highly accomplished silver medal team like losers. The entire match was broadcast to an enthusiastic Taiwanese audience, but only 40 minutes of it was shown in China.
Communist-controlled Hong Kong’s media was similarly narrow-minded, reporting Leung and Wang as silver medalists but making no mention of Taiwan’s gold-medal-winning team. China’s ultra-nationalist “Little Pink” self-righteousness took to social media to complain that the badminton match was fixed and that the umpire was a Taiwan sympathizer. Some particularly sore-ass Little Pinks argued that China should have been recorded as the winner. both Gold and silver medals will not be awarded to Taiwan as it is an “integral part of China’s territory.”
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“When will unification happen? I don’t want to see a Taiwanese team in the next Olympics,” lamented one Chinese social media user, forgetting that his wish has already been granted, because the Olympics have promoted Taiwanese athletes as residents of “Chinese Taipei” since the 1980s.
“China claims to be a great power, but in reality it is very intolerant and intolerant, so CCTV stops broadcasting when China loses and only broadcasts when China wins,” Chen Pocong, a Chinese-American political commentator, told RFA.
“China claims that the Olympics have no politics, but they are bringing politics into the Olympics,” he thought.
China’s Zhang Yufei competes in the women’s 200-meter butterfly qualifying event at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, July 31, 2024. (Ashley Landis/The Associated Press)
Chen noted that CCTV was sending a large number of reporters to the Paris Olympics because Chinese athletes had been instructed not to give interviews to other media.
Taiwanese people, both in Paris and in their home country, was celebrated enthusiastically The joy of winning the gold medal was a sign of victory for the authorities: Signs and banners may have been confiscated, but that didn’t stop spectators from chanting “Taiwan!” in the stands or including a bit of the Taiwanese national anthem in the opening fanfare.
“I’m so moved. Even though we can’t officially be called Taiwan at the Olympics, we are being noticed so this is a proud moment for all Taiwanese,” one Taiwanese Olympic fan wrote on Facebook.
“This shows we can remain strong no matter how threatened we feel from the other side,” another person said, referring to China’s menacing presence across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s government on Monday asked French authorities to investigate an incident in which a sign reading “Go Taiwan!” was painted on the Taiwanese flag. was It was violently stolen and destroyed from a female badminton fan, while another fan reported that a towel bearing a similar slogan had been stolen.
