The women’s starkly different circumstances — celebrated vs. silenced — reflect that to the Chinese state everyone is a tool that serves a purpose until it does not.
Two women have dominated Chinese social media during the Beijing Winter Olympics.
One is Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old skier born and raised in California who won a gold medal for China. The other is a mother of eight who was found chained around her neck to the wall of a doorless shack.
The Chinese internet is exploding with discussions about which of the two represents the real China. Many people are angry that the government-controlled algorithms glorify Ms. Gu, who fits into the narrative of the powerful and prosperous China, while censoring the chained woman, whose deplorable conditions defy that narrative.
The two women’s starkly different circumstances — celebrated vs. silenced — reflect the reality that to the Chinese state, everyone is a tool that serves a purpose until it does not.
Whether she wants it, Ms. Gu has become a powerful propaganda tool for Beijing to demonstrate its appeal to global talent and the benefits of being loyal to China. She represents the successful China that Beijing would like the world to admire.
The chained woman represents the poor and backward China that hundreds of millions still inhabit. They sometimes appear in the state media to demonstrate the country’s success in eradicating extreme poverty until their miseries become an inconvenient truth.
“Does Eileen Gu’s success have anything to do with ordinary Chinese?” goes the headline of one viral article that was censored later.
“Can we remember these women while cheering for Eileen Gu?” asks another headline.
“To judge whether a society is civilized or not, we should not look at how successful the privileged are but how miserable the disadvantaged are,” the article said. “Ten thousand sports champions can’t wash away the humiliation of one enslaved woman, not to mention tens of thousands of them.”
The Chinese government doesn’t like where the debate is heading. The juxtaposition of the two women highlights that underneath the glamorous surface of one of the world’s largest economies lie jarring poverty and widespread abuse of women’s rights.
It defeats the purpose of recruiting star athletes like Ms. Gu: to showcase a powerful China with global appeal.
“The reality is that the vast majority of Chinese won’t have the opportunity to become Eileen Gu,” Li Yinuo, founder of a prominent education company in Beijing, wrote in an article. But the tragedy of the chained woman, she wrote, could happen to anyone.
A few hours later, her article was deleted.Embedded in the debate is a deep disappointment among middle-class Chinese who are usually willing to go along with the government’s narratives but are incensed by the repeated lies, lack of action and subsequent censorship in the case of the chained woman.
The fates of the two women converged online last week after Ms. Gu won her gold medal.
At one point, Ms. Gu, who grew up in an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco and represents some of the biggest brands, like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Company, occupied 10 of the 20 hottest hashtags on Weibo. The hashtag about Xiaohuamei was nowhere to be seen, even though many people were still talking about her.
Some social media users were outraged by the lopsided treatment of the two women. They felt that even though they had tried their best to be the obedient and useful tools in the giant machinery of the Chinese state, Xiaohuamei’s tragedy showed that the state won’t necessarily offer them protection.
A Weibo user with the handle @lanlankuaitao wrote in posts and comments that she was a middle-class mother who just wanted a peaceful life and never wanted to engage in social issues.
“I worked hard to raise my daughter. I’ve bought a house for her and saved money for her to pursue a doctoral degree,” she wrote. “I wanted her to be free like a bird who could fly anywhere and enjoy life. But the reality showed me that she could be the next to be abducted to the mountains of Xuzhou and tortured by men.”
Ms. Gu and her supporters could argue that it was not fair to compare her success with the tragedy of the chained woman. They have a point. But they should blame the Chinese state, which has been showering the Olympian with adulation and protection while seemingly ignoring the plight of Xiaohuamei.
Many of the hottest social media hashtags about Ms. Gu were created by the most important official media outlets, including the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency.
Official media attention is also coming from some unexpected corners. #EileenGupushesbackonAmericanmedia, created by a website under China’s powerful macroeconomic planning agency, had 850 million views.
The website of the Communist Party’s anti-graft enforcement arm published an exclusive interview with Ms. Gu.
When China’s nationalistic online users criticized that Ms. Gu didn’t sing along to the national anthem on the podium, Weibo censored hashtags such as #EileenGunationalanthem.
Known as the “frog princess” in China, Ms. Gu was elusive when asked about Peng Shuai, the tennis star who was once hailed by the state media as “our Chinese princess.” Ms. Peng accused a retired top Chinese leader of sexual assault in November, and her name remains strictly censored on the Chinese internet.
Because she avoids sensitive issues, Ms. Gu is hailed as the model athlete for the others of Chinese heritage to learn from. She’s also cited as evidence of the superiority of China’s governance model over that of the United States.
“It’s so great that the beautiful, talented Eileen Gu came back to compete for China and won,” wrote Hu Xijin, a former editor in chief of The Global Times who still writes for the Communist Party tabloid, “while the blind, disabled Chen Guangcheng went to the United States to ‘seek brightness.’” Mr. Chen is the blind human rights lawyer who was put under house arrests for years before moving to the United States in 2012.
Mr. Hu wrote that China welcomed more scientists, athletes and businesspeople. “Let China be the place to get things done,” he wrote.
Some social media users criticized Mr. Hu’s post, saying it revealed how the system thought of the disabled and the disadvantaged like Xiaohuamei.
“This is life in China,” the writer Murong Xuecun posted on Twitter. “On one side is a Winter Olympic champion who cannot be criticized. On the other side is the chained woman who is being censored. One has a bright future. The other has come to a dead end.”
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纽时：谷爱凌与小花梅，谁代表着真实的中国？
其中一位是18岁的滑雪运动员谷爱凌，她在加州出生长大，为中国赢得了一枚金牌。另一位是八个孩子的母亲，有人发现她脖子上拴着铁链，被锁在一间没有门的棚屋墙上。
中国互联网上爆发了一场这两个人中究竟哪一个代表真正中国的讨论。许多人感到愤怒的是，由政府控制的算法美化谷爱凌，却对那个被锁着的女人进行审查，因为前者符合强大繁荣的中国这种叙事，而后者的悲惨处境则与该叙事不符。
不管是否愿意，谷爱凌已成为北京强有力的宣传工具，用来展示中国对全球人才的吸引力，以及效忠中国的好处。她代表着北京希望世界欣赏的成功的中国。
被锁住的女人代表着仍有数亿人居住的贫穷落后的中国。她们有时会出现在国家媒体上，展示这个国家在消除极端贫困方面的成功，直到她们的苦难成为不合时宜的真相。
“谷爱凌的成功，和普通人有什么关系？”这是一篇随后遭审查的热门文章的标题。
“谷爱凌夺冠了，我们为她欢呼的同时，还记得她们么？”另一个标题问道。
“一个文明社会，不是看强者多强，而是看弱者多弱，所以一万个冠军也洗刷不了一个女奴的耻辱，何况是成千上万的女奴，”文章写道。
中国政府不喜欢这场辩论的走向。这两位女性被相提并论，凸显出世界最大经济体之一在光鲜的外表下，隐藏着令人不安的贫困，以及对女性权利的广泛侵犯。
这违背了让谷爱凌这样的明星运动员归化的初衷：展示一个具有全球吸引力的强大中国。
“绝大多数女性没有机会成为谷爱凌，”北京一家知名教育公司的创始人李一诺在一篇文章中写道。但被锁女人的悲剧可能发生在任何人身上，她写道。
几个小时后，她的文章被删除了。
这场辩论中蕴含着中国中产阶级深深的失望，他们通常愿意认同政府的叙述，但被锁女人一案中反复出现的谎言、缺乏行动以及随后的审查令他们感到愤怒。
上周，谷爱凌庆祝在冬奥会女子自由式滑雪大跳台项目上夺金。 DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
他们觉得政府把太多资源投入到一个享有特权的社会成员身上，却忽略了另一个急需帮助的成员。他们担心后者的不幸会发生在他们或他们的女儿身上。
许多社交媒体用户，包括一些自称民族主义小粉红的人，发布了一句引自一本中国著名小说的话：“我爱国，但国爱我吗？”
据政府网站报道，这个被锁女人的名字叫“小花梅”。自一月底一段短视频在网上热转以来，这个故事就在中国互联网上引起了广泛关注。视频中，一个中年妇女带着茫然的表情站在黑暗的棚屋里，脖子上拴着一条链子。随后的视频显示，她失去了大部分牙齿，似乎精神健康有问题。
在接下来的两周内，当地政府发表了四份相互矛盾的声明。在周四的最新声明中，当局报告称，小花梅可能是人口买卖的受害者，她的丈夫正因非法监禁而接受调查。政府此前否认了这两项指控。
上周谷爱凌获得金牌后，这两位女性的命运在网上发生了交汇。
谷爱凌在旧金山的一个高档社区长大，为路易威登和蒂芙尼等几家最著名的品牌代言，她一度占据了微博上20个最热门话题中的10个。关于小花梅的话题标签却不见踪影，尽管很多人仍然在谈论她。
一些社交媒体用户对这两名女性受到的不平等对待感到愤怒。他们觉得，尽管他们尽了最大努力成为中国庞大国家机器中顺从、有用的工具，但小花梅的悲剧表明，国家不一定会保护他们。
微博用户@lanlankuaitao在帖子和评论中写道，自己是一个中产阶级母亲，只想过平静的生活，从未想过要参与社会问题。
“我辛苦生养的女儿，房子我都给她买好了，供她读博士的钱我都准备好了，我本来想让她轻成一只飞燕，天南海北享受生活，结果现在现实告诉我，没准哪天她就可能挨一闷棍，成为徐州山区里的人彘，”她写道。
谷爱凌和她的支持者可能会说，把她的成功与被锁住的女人的悲剧相提并论是不公平的。他们有道理。但他们应该归咎于中国政府，因为政府一直在大肆吹捧和保护这位奥运选手，却似乎忽视了小花梅的困境。
许多关于谷爱凌的热门社交媒体标签都是由最重要的官方媒体创建的，包括《人民日报》和新华社。
彭帅上周在冬奥会上观看女子自由式滑雪比赛。 RICHARD HEATHCOTE/GETTY IMAGES
官方媒体的关注也来自一些意想不到的角落。由中国强大的宏观经济规划机构下属的一个网站创建的“#谷爱凌回怼美媒”获得了8.5亿次浏览。
中共中央反贪执法部门的网站发表了对谷爱凌的独家采访。
当中国的民族主义网络用户批评谷爱凌没有在领奖台上跟着唱国歌时，微博屏蔽了“#谷爱凌国歌”等话题标签。
在中国，谷爱凌被称为“青蛙公主”。当被问及曾被国家媒体誉为“我们的中国公主”的网球明星彭帅时，谷爱凌显得有些难以启齿。彭帅在11月指控一位退休的中国最高领导人对她进行性侵犯，她的名字在中国互联网上仍然受到严格审查。
由于谷爱凌避开了敏感问题，她被誉为其他华裔运动员学习的榜样。她还被引为中国治理模式优于美国的证据。
“这样好哈。漂亮、有才华的谷爱凌回来代表中国参加比赛还拿冠军，行动困难的盲人陈光诚等则去了美国‘寻找光明’，”《环球时报》的前总编辑胡锡进写道，他仍然为这份共产党的小报撰稿。陈光诚是一位盲人人权律师，在2012年移居美国之前曾在中国遭软禁数年。
胡锡进写道，中国欢迎更多的科学家、运动员和商人。“让中国成为做事天堂，”他写道。
一些社交媒体用户批评了胡锡进的帖子，称这暴露了体制对残疾人和小花梅这样的弱势群体的看法。
“一边是冬奥冠军不能非议，一边是徐州铁链遭遇噤声。一边是前程似锦，一边是走投无路。一边是火热，一边是水深。这就是中国生活，”作家慕容雪村在Twitter上写道。
