- Zheng Zhonglan
- BBC Special Correspondent
Image source,Reuters
Belarusian player Krystsina Tsimanouskaya went to Poland to seek asylum
Recently, a Belarusian female track and field athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (Krystsina Tsimanouskaya) refused to return to the country and asked the Japanese police for help, and eventually took a detour to Poland to seek political asylum, which caused widespread concern.
Although the organizers of major international sporting events, including the International Olympic Committee, strive to be neutral and apolitical, historically, athletes from different countries have used this great opportunity to be highly exposed to the international media to “defection”, “rebellion” or Incidents of “evacuation” have occurred frequently without interruption.
Historical data shows that during the last 1964 Olympic Games held in Tokyo, Japan, there was also a major escape event involving athletes on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “Voting to the Communist Party” incident in mainland China.
Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue Incident
On October 10, 1964, the Tokyo Olympics opened with a congratulatory speech read by Emperor Showa. As the first time in Asia and the first time in the world that a non-white country has hosted the Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics is widely regarded as representing Japan’s economic revival and prosperity after the war. It is of great symbolic significance to the host. Japan is also doing its utmost to hope to host a successful Olympics with zero errors and zero accidents.
However, just before and after the closing of the conference on October 24, the shooter Ma Qingshan and photographer Chen Jue who represented the Republic of China team “disappeared” one after another.
Ma Qingshan first went to the local Overseas Chinese Association in Tokyo to seek “political asylum” on the 23rd, claiming that he missed his parents in mainland China, and then went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to make a record. Born in 1926 in Ma Qingshan in the Liaobei Province of the Republic of China at the time, he followed the Kuomintang to Taiwan in 1949, and once served in the Highway Bureau after leaving the army. He allegedly said that he missed his hometown for many years in Taiwan, and even said to the Tokyo police with a sad face, “Even if I lose my life, I don’t want to go back to Taiwan. My heart is determined.”
After making a judgment, the Tokyo police decided to “repatriate” Ma Qingshan to mainland China according to their wishes. Since mainland China had no formal diplomatic relations with Japan at that time, and Taiwan was still under martial law, the incident was first disclosed by Hong Kong’s “Wen Wei Po” and began to spread back to Beijing and Taipei.
After the Olympics closed, photographer Chen Jue went to the Soviet embassy in Japan to seek political asylum. Chen Jue, who followed the Nationalist Government to Taiwan, had served in the Hsinchu County Government for many years before. He also expressed that he wanted to go to the mainland out of homesickness and dissatisfaction with the Chiang Kai-shek government.
At that time, because Japan only had formal diplomatic relations with the government of the Republic of China, then President Chiang Kai-shek also used diplomatic channels to mediate, but ultimately failed to prevent the two from “defection.” With funding from local overseas Chinese and entrepreneurs, Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue took a Norwegian freighter back to mainland China in early November.
Image source,Reuters
At the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force performed stunts and used jets to outline the Olympic rings
Cross-strait propaganda caliber
The official slogan of the Kuomintang government in Taiwan at that time was to define the two as “communist members” who defected after being “designed and exploited by the Communist Party’s sentimental unit.”
For the Chinese Communist regime, Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue are undoubtedly the return of the “uprising.” According to the CCP’s official media archives, the high-level government not only arranged for Ma Qingshan’s father and brother, and Chen Jue’s mother and sister to greet them at the port, but also made high-profile publicity in the People’s Daily.
According to investigations, on November 17th, Beijing arranged for more than 1,500 people to hold a welcome party in the Beijing National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Auditorium. Wu Han, deputy mayor of Beijing, and Cai Tingkai, deputy director of the State Sports Commission, attended and awarded a 10,000 yuan uprising bonus.
In his speech, Ma Qingshan thanked “Chairman Mao and the great motherland” and said that “the people of Taiwan are deeply dissatisfied with the dark rule of the United States and Chiang Kai-shek. I had the idea of returning to the mainland of the motherland two years ago.”
Chen Jue also claimed that he was “the prodigal son”. He criticized that “Taiwan is not like the so-called’beautiful island’ of foreigners, but a hell of evil controlled by the Tiger Wolf Group.” Chen Jue said at the time that he hoped that it would be possible soon. “Liberate Taiwan”.
At that time, some analysis pointed out that the incident involving Ma Qingshan and Chen Juetou was very important to Beijing. The reason is that the CCP retired from the International Olympic Committee in 1958 because it protested that the Republic of China represented by Taiwan represented China in the Olympics, and then withdrew from the International Olympic Committee, and then joined hands with Indonesia and other countries to host the “Emerging Power Games” in 1963 to fight the Olympics.
Before the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, the People’s Daily editorial repeatedly criticized the Olympics as a conspiracy by American imperialism. Even during the event, the first nuclear bomb was tested on October 16, which gave a strong warning. However, after Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue voted together, the CCP’s official attack on the Olympics began to ease.
According to media reports in mainland China, Ma Qingshan later participated in two national sports games in mainland China and later became a shooting coach. He trained many shooting athletes in Hebei Province. Many people have the impression of him as “straightforward and hateful.” “It has the taste of big brothers.” The story of him and Chen Jue was “slowly forgotten by history” in mainland China.
In Taiwan, in the media, there are Ma Qingshan suspected of “prescribing” the famous “Asian Iron Man” Yang Chuanguang, who was expected to win Olympic medals at the time, and the so-called “beauty man” of the Chinese Communist Party.
Image source,PA Media
The Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue incident occurred in 1964 in Taiwan, which was still under martial law. The picture shows the late former President Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China at a military parade in Taipei.
Japan’s embarrassment
For Japan at that time, how to properly handle the incident of Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue’s “voting to the Communist Party” was a relatively test of judgment on international politics. Although Japan had diplomatic relations with the Republic of China at that time, the overseas Chinese in Japan were divided into pro-communist and pro-Taiwan factions. In addition, Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue did not have Japanese residency qualifications. After their visas expired, they could only be repatriated according to their wishes. In addition, Japan and China have a history of war, so I hoped to end it as soon as possible to avoid long nights and dreams. The above-mentioned multiple considerations have caused the Japanese government to be quite embarrassed.
It is worth mentioning that Japan’s handling of the Belarusian athletes this time seems to be similar to the previous handling of the Ma Qingshan and Chen Jue incidents. It was also settled as soon as possible through third-party intervention in order to minimize the incident’s impact on Japan and Belarus. Influence.
Looking back at 1964, apart from Ma Qingshan and Chen Juetou, Japan also experienced other ups and downs at that time. For example, the former Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev (also Khrushchev) was in a disguised coup while on vacation in the Black Sea, which once disturbed the Soviet players in the player village, and the sudden change of name to Zambia (also Zambia) in North Rhodesia in Africa. , The rare phenomenon of the country name and national flag being replaced at the opening and closing ceremonies, etc.
The Tokyo Olympics without spectators and applause
A brief history of “defection” in international competitions
Especially during the Cold War, incidents of athletes from the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries fleeing to the West were almost constant, and there were also many incidents of Cuban baseball players fleeing to the United States.
Even after the Cold War, there have been many large-scale “escape” incidents: for example, during the 2012 London Olympics, 15 athletes from African countries first “disappeared”, and then formally applied for refugee asylum from the British government; held in Australia in 2018 During the British Commonwealth Games, more than 200 athletes and referees from African countries applied for “asylum”.