TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two recently deleted internet posts have added to the confusion over the status of teenage skier Eileen Gu's (谷愛凌) citizenship, prompting former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to call on her to "pick a side."
The 18-year-old was thrust into the spotlight on Feb. 8 when she took gold in the big air competition in the Beijing Olympics and later silver in the slopestyle on Tuesday (Feb. 15). Gu, who was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and unidentified American father, has become a controversial figure since she chose to join the Chinese Olympic skiing team in 2019 instead of representing the land of her birth and upbringing.
At the center of the controversy is the fact that China does not recognize dual citizenship, with athletes who compete under its banner required to renounce their non-Chinese citizenship.
In past interviews, she has avoided directly answering whether she has given up her American passport. Her response to the question on Feb. 8 typified previous statements: "I definitely feel just as American as I am Chinese. I'm American when I am in the U.S., and I'm Chinese when I'm in China."
In January, her corporate sponsor Red Bull wrote, "Gu decided to give up her American passport and naturalize as a Chinese citizen in order to compete for China." However, when The Wall Street Journal contacted Red Bull about the statement, it was scrubbed from the website.
From as early as Feb. 5 and as recently as Feb. 9, the Olympics website stated that she had "dual nationality," as can be seen in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. However, VOA observed that the sentence that mentioned the status of her nationality had been erased by Feb. 10.
Olympics website on Feb. 9 stating Gu had dual nationality. (Wayback Machine screenshot)
The Independent on Feb. 2 reported that Beijing2022.cn, the website for the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Winter Games, included a sentence that read, "After her first World Cup win in Italy in 2019, (Gu) renounced her United States citizenship in order to represent China at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games." By Feb. 11, the sentence had been trimmed down to eliminate the reference to the renunciation of her U.S. citizenship.
Beijing 2022 website on Jan. 30 stating she renounced her US citizenship. (Wayback Machine screenshot)
On Tuesday, Haley told Phillip Wegmann from Real Clear Politics that Gu needs to take a clear stance on her citizenship and face the repercussions: "In terms of the citizenship, look, China or the U.S.? You have got to pick a side. Period. You’ve got to pick a side because you're either American or you're Chinese, and they are two very different countries." Haley added that when an athlete such as Gu decides between representing the U.S. or China, either "you're standing for freedom or you're standing for human rights abuses. There is no in-between."
