Wrong Chinese national anthem played at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division III in Bosnia Photo: OrangeNews.hk

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu vowed on Sunday to continue pressuring Google to display the correct national anthem of China in its top search results, noting it is unacceptable to play a wrong national anthem at international competitions. 

Lee noted that the national anthem represents the dignity of a country, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government will do its best to ensure that the national anthem of China is played correctly on different occasions. The HKSAR government expects to solve the problem of wrong search results by continuing discussing the matter with Google. 

A song linked to the social turmoil in Hong Kong in 2019, instead of “March of the Volunteers,” the national anthem of China including the HKSAR, was played at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Ice Hockey World Championship Division III in Bosnia after the Hong Kong team defeated Iran 11-1 in Group B of the competition on February 28. The wrong song was played for around 10 seconds before some members from the Hong Kong team made a “T-gesture sign” to signal the problem. The correct Chinese national anthem was played afterward. 

Similar incidents occurred last year during international sports events where the song linked with the violent unrest in 2019 was played in the place of the Chinese national anthem. 

Lee said on Sunday that most of the incidents where the wrong anthem was played at international sports events were mainly related to the incorrect search results from Google as far as the HKSAR government knows. 

“We think that Google has the legal and moral obligations to secure the correctness of national anthem as a big enterprise and hope that Google will work with us to solve this problem with an all-out effort,” Lee said. 

On November 22, 2022, the Hong Kong Sports Federation and Olympic Committee (SF&OC) issued guidelines to all sports associations in the HKSAR for handling the broadcasting of the national anthem and the hoisting of HKSAR flag during the participation of Hong Kong teams in international sports events.

After the wrong national anthem incident, the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association (HKIHA) was alleged to have failed to comply with the guidelines for requesting the toolkit for use from the SF&OC. 

In a statement sent by the SF&OC to the Global Times on Friday, it said HKIHA did not collect the toolkit from SF&OC before the event in accordance with the guidelines. However, according to the guidelines, this is not a prerequisite as national sports associations could also download the national anthem from the official website. 

HKIHA stated that they had passed the correct version of the national anthem to the organizer before the event. However, both HKIHA’s initial report and the subsequent report on the incident did not specify as when and where the correct version of the national anthem was provided. It is therefore strongly believed that HKIHA did not perform the duty in accordance with the guidelines, the SF&OC said in the statement. 

Moreover, this incident could have been avoided if HKIHA had made a more robust request for checking the national anthem with the event organizer before the start of the match, according to the statement. 

The SF&OC thus suggested further discussions with the relevant government departments and consideration of applying applicable and appropriate penalties to the ice association in accordance with the guidelines. 

The HKSAR government received on Friday the preliminary investigation report from the SF&OC on the incident and vowed to seriously review the report and discuss follow-up actions in detail with the SF&OC. 

Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung Yun-hung pointed out that if it is confirmed that the HKIHA failed to follow the guidelines, it will be dealt with seriously, but the decision will be made after a detailed report is submitted to the HKSAR government by the SF&OC. 

Yeung also noted that it is unacceptable to repeatedly play the wrong national anthem in international sports events and emphasized that Hong Kong teams and the SF&OC are expected to strictly follow and implement relevant guidelines when participating in international events. 

Global Times