On the 29th, we celebrated the national holiday Chuseok. South Korea and North Korea faced each other in the second round of Group C of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games women’s basketball preliminaries held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in China. The result was Korea’s 81-62 win. The two, who had won a silver medal together as a single team at the Jakarta-Palembang Games five years ago, met as enemies this time.
The atmosphere at the stadium that day was as cold as the strained inter-Korean relations. The Korean players expressed their joy, but the North Korean players did not respond. Kang I-seul, who played for the unified team five years ago, said, “I tried to say hello to North Korean coach Seong-sim Jeong, who was the coach of the unified team at the time, but it didn’t work out. We are of the same Korean race and we had a relationship five years ago, so I’m upset. But I completely understand.”
The frozen atmosphere reached its peak at the press conference. When a South Korean reporter used the expression “North Korea,” a North Korean athlete who served as an interpreter said in English, “We are not North Korea .” “We are the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ( DPRK ),” he said, expressing displeasure, saying, “In the Asian Games, all countries must be called by their correct name.” The questions were simple questions about the North Korean cheering squad and local food. However, the North Korean players did not tolerate the expression ‘North Korea’.
It was similar even after the women’s soccer quarterfinals (30th) ended. When the word ‘North Korea’ came up, North Korean national team coach Ri Yu-il said, “We are not North Korea or the North Korean side. “It’s the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and let’s do it right away,” he said angrily. North Korea responds sensitively to being called ‘North Korea’ or ‘North Korea’ even at the UN General Assembly. Why.
This is related to political issues surrounding the Asian Games. Since its inception in 1951, the Asian Games has experienced many ups and downs due to political reasons. In particular, in the special situation in Asia where토토사이트 there is conflict between South Korea and North Korea and China and Taiwan, ‘national name’ was the most sensitive topic. This is because how a country’s name is expressed is closely related to the issue of recognizing the legitimacy of that country. The names each country uses now are the result of intense efforts to ensure that all countries can participate in the competition.
In fact, North Korea participated in the Asian Games for the first time at the 1974 Tehran Games, and for this to happen, the International Olympic Committee ( IOC ) had to allow North Korea to use ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ as its country name at the 1969 General Assembly. Rather than conflict over the name of the country, the intention was to create a venue for exchange by participating in the competition. It was a decision that was possible thanks to the warmth of the post-Cold War wind that was blowing in earnest in the 1970s.
There is a similar controversy between China and Taiwan. Taiwan began to lose the name ‘ China ‘ that it had previously used in the 1970s when China established diplomatic relations with other countries. A representative example is that ahead of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Canada, which established diplomatic relations with China (in 1970), stated, “We will allow Taiwan to participate if it does not use the name China and the flag of the Republic of China,” citing the one-China principle. At that time, Taiwan did not participate in the competition. Taiwan has been participating in the Olympics and Asian Games since 1981, using the name ‘ Chinese Taipei
‘, according to the results of the 1979 International Olympic Committee Executive Committee . Taiwan also participated in the Asian Games under the same name. However, the conflict is still ongoing. In 2018, Taiwan held a referendum on whether to participate in the Tokyo Olympics using the more independent name ‘ Taiwan ‘ instead of the Chinese Taipei. However, this agenda was rejected in the national referendum by a margin of about 200,000 votes.