Today's sports news made Chinese netizens fry the pot.
At the 2022 Time Magazine Summit, Ailing Gu announced that she would serve as an ambassador for the U.S. bid to host the 2030 or 2034 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
For a time, thousands of waves were stirred up, and the nationality issue, which had been calmed down for a long time, was paid attention to by everyone.
In fact, it is not uncommon for well-known Chinese athletes to serve as ambassadors for other countries.
For example, as early as 2005, China's diving "queen" Gao Min became one of the 8 guests invited by the New York Olympic Bidding Committee at that time; In 2007, Chinese pair skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo served as honorary ambassadors for the bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics in South Korea, Pyeongchang; In 2008, Ding Junhui, a snooker billiards player who was very popular at the time, was determined to serve as the ambassador for London's Olympic bid.
The above Chinese athletes are all Chinese athletes with Chinese nationality.
Yes, you read it awkwardly, and I write it awkwardly.
Ordinary people outside the sports circle believe that because Gu Ailing represented China in the Winter Olympic Games, Gu Ailing is a Chinese athlete, so Chinese athletes must be Chinese nationality. China does not recognize dual nationality, so since she is now a Chinese national, it must not be an American nationality.
But here's an important detail, she never publicly admitted that she only had Chinese nationality.
Because the world of sports is not the same as the world of politics, there is a great deal of difference and compatibility.
First, the registered nationality of an athlete does not equal identity nationality.
At the beginning, Gu Ailing announced that she had only become a member of the Chinese ski team, and she changed her registered nationality at the International Skating Federation, that is, she had the ability to represent China in international competitions, but her registered nationality in the International Skating Federation was not equal to her full identity nationality.
In other words, registered nationality can only allow athletes to represent the country, and does not mean that the nationality is completely changed in accordance with the nationality laws of that country.
Like every Olympic Games, the media of various countries will mention the inspirational gymnast, the athlete of Uzbekistan nationality, Chusovkina. She represented the former Soviet Union at the 1991 World Championships in the United States; Represented the CIS at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics; Represented Uzbekistan at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta; He later represented Germany at the 2006 World Championships in Denmark, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the 2012 London Olympics. In 2014, she represented Uzbekistan at the Incheon Asian Games.
After becoming a citizen of Uzbekistan, Chusovkina never changed her identity and nationality.
And this situation, in the world of football, is even more common. As long as a player is an official player who has not played for FIFA for country A, he or she can change his or her registered nationality to represent country B in FIFA's tournament in accordance with the requirements of the nationality law of country B. As for whether the player's status and nationality are changed, it is not within the requirements of FIFA.
Then, Gu Ailing represents China in the Winter Olympic Games, as long as it complies with the IOC's nationality registration rules, as for the ownership of identity and nationality, it is not among the requirements of the IOC.
Second, research and maximize compliance with the use of rules.
The mainland's nationality law only provides for two situations: voluntary withdrawal of Chinese nationality and automatic loss of Chinese nationality. When it comes to chinese citizenship, but not renouncing U.S. citizenship is not one of the cases, it is a well-known gray area in the immigration industry.
In other words, in this case, you are still a U.S. citizen, provided that you do not formally renounce your U.S. citizenship to the U.S. government.
In other words, it doesn't matter whether China recognizes her U.S. citizenship. Importantly, the U.S. government will continue to recognize her U.S. citizenship as long as she has reached the age of 18 and has not voluntarily requested and declared her renunciation of her U.S. citizenship.
As we all know, it is very difficult to become a U.S. citizen; But what may not be clear to you is that it takes more courage to renounce U.S. citizenship.
Well-known athletes like Gu Ailing, renouncing their U.S. citizenship, not only needs to go through official statements in the public media (we have never seen or heard of it), but also needs to pay a high fee, commonly known as the abandonment tax, which is 39.6% of all assets; People whose assets are above $2 million or have paid taxes on average at least $139,000 in the previous five years will have to pay another high penalty tax. In addition, if you want to inherit the inheritance from your immediate U.S. citizen (the U.S. father who has not been disclosed), you will have to pay an additional inheritance tax of 40% of the value of the estate.
Space is limited, so I won't list the rest, in which case no one will easily renounce their U.S. citizenship.
The United States certainly recognizes her dual citizenship, except that she must use her own U.S. passport when entering and leaving the United States. Therefore, even if she obtains Chinese citizenship, she will not automatically lose her American citizenship unless she voluntarily and publicly declares that she has waived and filled out some of the procedures, as well as paid high taxes and fines.
In fact, she has long said the truth in front of the media: when she is in China, she is Chinese, and when she is in the United States, she is an American.
This is not a diplomatic rhetoric, it is a solid response to her nationality.
Gu Ailing only focused on the attention of the media and the public, and in her case, it is not a case of this Winter Olympics. Many naturalized athletes on the mainland's ice hockey team are in a similar situation.
They all passed the Regulations on the Administration of Residence of Foreigners to qualify for the competition to represent China. Because in 2000, because of the need to join the WTO and other reasons at that time, the mainland government has already revised the "Regulations on permanent residence of foreigners", the greatest possibility and the greatest extent to make the right of abode loose and expanded, many eligible foreigners can receive official Chinese passports, but do not deeply investigate the question of whether they withdraw from the previous international, which is equivalent to restrictive semi-national status.
To explain, that is to say, naturalization in this case is only for the convenience of representing China to participate in international competitions, that is, Chinese that is Chinese in some international affairs, but not fully entitled at home. The most common right they do not have is that they do not have the qualifications to vote and be elected as Chinese citizens.
What we can be sure of is that Gu Ailing must still have U.S. citizenship and all the legal rights of U.S. citizens, and there is really no legal restriction on whether she can have Chinese nationality at the same time.
A few more words, why Gu Ailing will represent the mainland in the Winter Olympics.
First of all, for well-known reasons, she has 50% Chinese ancestry, and there is no controversy or any objection to representing either parent in the Winter Olympics.
Secondly, we are the host country of this Winter Olympics, and our own athletes will automatically qualify for the World Series and do not need to participate in the World Series as a qualification tournament. Moreover, the winter project has always been a weak project in the mainland, and Gu Ailing only needs to reduce the dimensionality and strike, and it can easily stand out in the internal selection competition.
Third, she represented China, it has been a long time to prepare, the advantages that can be obtained are not limited to home advantages, but more than the advantages beyond the sports level, which will not be explained in depth here.
Finally, and most importantly, under the premise of the above three prerequisites, the commercial value of representing China in the Winter Olympics is immeasurable. All the traffic and all the capital will come like a tide, even if there is a reason for the epidemic, the endorsement of the Winter Olympics has overwhelmed her, if it is not the cause of the epidemic, I believe Gu Ailing will stay in China longer.
Therefore, everyone does not have to dwell on the "thank you China" on social media when she returns to the United States, it is like our family has a distant relative to help move bricks and build a house, the work is done, why not let the family go home and reunite with the family, is it necessary to build another house for her alone?
Interestingly, when some media asked her whether she would represent China in the next edition? Her responses were very public: "Who knows", "Of course, why not". The two sentences are contradictory, and neither in-depth discussion nor entanglement, directly cross the topic of her college, from beginning to end, no longer mention which country to represent, let alone take the initiative to mention China.
This is especially like the polite saying that we often hang on our lips: We have time to meet and make an appointment.
We certainly will not ask each other, when do you have time, tomorrow or next week, this month or the next life; I will not ask, about which, about the hotel or about the hotel, about your bed or about my bed.
After all, if people can represent their mother's country in the Winter Olympic Games, why can't they make some contributions to their father's country, and moreover, they are still citizens of their father's country, and doing something for their own motherland is an unshirkable thing for each of us.
If you are allowed to become China's Olympic bid ambassadors, I think you will also be actively corresponding.
As for whether Gu Ailing will represent China in the next Winter Olympics, time will tell us, and there will be a reasonable explanation. If it is still on behalf of China, we still welcome it; If we represent other countries, we compete fairly.
Well, let's wait and see.