Inteviewer: What was it like to find yourself in the center of all this political discourse?
Liu: Ooh, am I?
Interviewer: I don't know if you feel you are, but there is all of this discourse around you and Eileen Gu. China and America are viewing you as like a liability or a hero.
Liu: Yes, I've seen that. I've known Eileen since I was 13 or something. We're from the Bay Area. She's super nice, and her mom is from China. I think people are hypocritical for shaming her for representing China. So in my head it's a bit hypocritical, because her mom is an immigrant. Y'all would have told her to go back to China. Now that they're back in China, you're mad. [Laughs] And it's sport, it doesn't matter what country we represent. Sport is sport, and she has a love for competition, she has love for the game. I think that's all that matters. There's no shame in going to where opportunity is.
2 Olympic gold medalists who are both half Chinese, half white. Eileen Gu was being hit with "China bad!" nonsense, so she went to compete for China since she has dual citizenship. As said in the OP, they're both friends because they're both from the same part of California, both have friends/family in the same ethnic group, and both compete in winter sports. Chuds are mad at Gu for winning gold medals for China instead of the US and mad at Liu because she's not a white nationalist who condemns Gu.