Is Winter Olympics star Eileen Gu Chinese or American? Let people be both, says Beijing researcher
- Amend outdated law that does not recognise dual citizenship, demographer suggests
- Chinese abroad have ‘talent that China’s modernisation drive urgently needs’ and it is in the country’s interest to remove obstacles
But all ambiguities could be resolved if China were to remove the article in its nationality law that rejects dual citizenship, according to Huang Wenzheng, a population expert at a Beijing-based think tank.
03:30
China celebrates as US-born skier Eileen Gu wins Winter Olympics gold for host nation
If this proposal is adopted, “Gu Ailing’s Chinese nationality issue will not have any legal obstacles and ambiguities,” Huang said, referring to Gu by her Chinese name in an article published on the WeChat account of the Centre for China and Globalisation.
Huang, a senior researcher at the centre who had first raised this proposal six years ago, also called on authorities to prioritise recognising the Chinese origins of overseas residents with foreign citizenship – not only to attract more talent from abroad but also to ease China’s demographic crisis.
China’s nationality law – enacted in 1980 – stipulates that anyone acquiring foreign citizenship would automatically lose their Chinese nationality.
Eileen Gu’s Olympic gold shows China needs more flexible citizenship rules
The law was “not in keeping with the times”, Huang wrote, as the country’s “economic and social situation has undergone tremendous changes, and the depth and frequency of exchanges with foreign personnel have long been different.”
The current rules only set up obstacles for overseas talent to go back and serve their motherland, he said.
Among the large number of young Chinese who had gone abroad to study and work abroad in past decades, many possessed “talent that China’s modernisation drive urgently needs”, Huang said.
“However, many of them have acquired foreign nationality and lost their Chinese nationality, so they cannot easily return to China.”
Eileen Gu’s Gucci mask, LV and Tiffany ads make China skier a hot property
Well before Gu decided to compete for China in 2019, she had come to be regarded as a skiing star, and was the face of many top brands.
But with neither the Chinese nor the US government providing official information on her citizenship, conflicting information continues to swirl.
The International Olympic Committee website states she has “dual nationality”, while a February 2 article in British online paper The Independent said that she had “renounced her United States citizenship for Chinese citizenship”, citing her bio on the official Beijing Winter Olympics website. But that sentence is now gone from the Games site.
At a media briefing on Tuesday after winning gold in the big air event, Gu once again sidestepped the question of her citizenship, emphasising instead that she considered herself Chinese when she was in China, and American when in the US.
The problem would be solved if China abolished the articles stipulating that dual nationality was not recognised, Huang said.
Overseas individuals, as well as their spouses, parents, and grandparents, who once held Chinese nationality could then automatically reacquire it. Unless someone formally renounced it, Chinese nationality should remain permanently valid, he suggested.
He also proposed that Chinese nationals use their Chinese passports to enter the country, and that China should give priority to their origin in the identification of their nationality, not their foreign passports.
However, Chinese holding dual nationality should not enjoy political rights such as voting in China, he said.
‘Shame on Zhu Yi’: Chinese fans turn on US-born figure skater after fall
Citing laws of Israel that support multiple citizenships, Huang said they helped strengthen the global Jewish sense of belonging to Israel, whereas India also issues “Person of Indian Origin” cards valid for Indians abroad, and their spouses and descendants.
The amendment of the law was an urgent matter, Huang said, citing the increasing number of Chinese going overseas, coupled with the further globalisation of the country’s economy and expansion of its cross-continental Belt and Road Initiative.
“More and more Chinese will face the difficulty of choosing their nationality,” Huang said. “Therefore, it is time to amend the nationality law and change outdated provisions.”
