China: Paris Olympics Are a Mess Because of 'Casual' French Culture

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times mocked French culture for its “sense of relaxation” on Monday, blaming it for a slew of errors at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, including organizers confusing North and South Korea and misspelling athletes’ names on official social media accounts.

The Paris Olympics began on Friday with an Opening Ceremony widely derided in the West for featuring pagan imagery interpreted as intentionally offensive to Christians as well as sexually inappropriate material. In South Korea, however, viewers were more angered by their delegation being presented at the Ceremonies as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” — the formal name for communist North Korea — and Olympics social media accounts publishing blurred photos of their flag. North and South Korea have been in a state of war for 74 years, making the gaffe an international incident requiring significant diplomacy.

Outside of the political, however, the Olympics have faced a host of challenges, including fecal pollution in the Seine River postponing athletic events and a push from environmentalists to deny athletes air conditioning that resulted in some athletes simply moving out of the Olympic Village and others reportedly bringing their own air conditioners.

The Global Times claimed that the apparent lack of organization and tact, according to unspecified “Chinese netizens,” was a product of French culture, not failings of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or persistent problems with multiple rounds of Games, including the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

The Times claimed:

Repeated mistakes in presenting wrong national flag for South Korea during the ongoing Paris Olympics have driven South Koreans crazy but has been joked about by Chinese netizens as a “sense of relaxation” that demonstrates French people’s romantic, casual and chill attitude.

“As it is, the unreliable French organizing committee does not actually target South Korea since its mistakes related to other countries also occurred from time to time,” the column continued, noting that the committee also incorrectly identified an Argentine swimmer as Chinese, “which surprised and embarrassed her a lot.”

“Considering so many mistakes and embarrassing moments occurred during the Paris Olympics, many Chinese netizens joked that such incidents represent French people’s commendable ‘sense of relaxation,'” the column concluded. “According to the live broadcast of the opening ceremony by China Central Television, with less than two hours to go before the start of the opening ceremony’s red-carpet event, the red carpet had yet to be fully laid out. ”

“Compared with some well-prepared Olympic Games, the Paris Olympics have demonstrated French people’s openness, freedom and inclusiveness, Chinese netizens commented,” the Global Times posited.

While using terms such as “commendable” and not specifically identifying the Beijing Games as a counter-example, the Chinese state outlet appeared to deride French people as somehow incapable of diligence and attention to detail. It is an attitude that the state newspaper has adopted in the past. In 2018, for example, the Global Times published an editorial condemning the culture of the 2016 Summer Olympics host, Brazil, as inferior to Han Chinese culture.

“It may sound racist to differentiate development based on culture. But after living in Brazil for a while, you will find out the answer,” the column published at the time, arguing that Brazilian culture does not allow for development. “Brazilians are not willing to be as diligent and hard working as the Chinese. Neither do they value savings for the next generation, like the Chinese do. Yet they demand the same welfare and benefits as those in developed countries.”

China is Brazil’s largest trade partner and has maintained friendly relations with the Chinese Communist Party under both the current government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the recent conservative government of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Similarly, China enjoys close relations with Paris, resulting in a recent visit from genocidal dictator Xi Jinping to France, but the relationship is apparently insufficient to limit bigoted commentary in government media.

To the extent that the Global Times has covered the Paris Olympics negatively, it has praised the Chinese government. In a separate article on Monday, the state outlet claimed that Chinese manufacturing — fueled by intellectual property theft and slavery — was the true star of the Games.

“The infusion of tech ingredients is the latest case of Chinese companies’ growing manufacturing prowess, in addition to cost performance, flexibility and first-rate services, observers said,” the article claimed, highlighting Chinese-made table tennis balls and other sporting gear.

“High-quality Chinese products will provide technical and service support for the Paris Olympics and make the event even more stunning visually and technologically,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning reportedly said.

China has hosted the Olympic Games twice: the Summer Olympics in 2008 and the Winter Olympics in 2022, both in Beijing. The latter event was mired in controversy, given China’s status as the leader of the world’s largest ongoing genocide — against the Uyghur people of East Turkistan — and as the origin location of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than seven million people worldwide. The 2022 Games began in the shadow of a massive lockdown in which the Communist Party imprisoned the 13 million residents of Xi’an in their homes in an attempt to contain the virus.

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The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were also marred by the resurfacing of Wimbledon champion Peng Shuai, who disappeared shortly before the event after accusing Olympics organizer and communist elite Zhang Gaoli of raping her. Peng appeared at the Olympics cheering on Chinese athletes and granted a bizarre interview to the French newspaper L’Equipe in which she denied ever making the allegations — under the watchful eye of a Party chaperone — and claimed she had never disappeared, though she did not resurface freely for weeks after posting her accusations online.