Commentary In the immortal words of Swedish pop group ABBA, “the winner takes it all.” The loser, however, “has to fall.” In China, as we will see, any “loser” unlucky enough to fall is mercilessly ridiculed. Instead of being offered assistance, support, and a helping hand, they are bullied and chastised, mocked, and maligned. This, I argue, tells us a lot about the country’s psyche, and why communist China has a bad international reputation. On Feb. 8, fans across China heaped praise on Eileen Gu, the freestyle skater who won her first gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. In fact, the praise was so effusive that Weibo, the country’s leading social media platform, temporarily crashed and 90,000 comments in the space of 30 minutes explains why. Gu, a teenager who was born in San Francisco, has an American father and a Chinese mother. In 2019, she decided to represent China. …
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