US will boycott China Olympics ...but won’t stop athletes going
THE US will stage a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in protest over China’s human rights abuses.
No official delegation will be sent to the Games in February but athletes will be able to attend with the full support of the White House.
And Britain should follow suit, a Conservative former leader has urged.
Abuses
White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed last night: “We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the Games.
“We have a fundamental commitment to promoting human rights. US diplomatic or official representation would treat these Games as business as usual in the face of the PRC’s egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang, and we simply can’t do that.” The US has accused China of genocide towards the Uighurs – a Muslim minority group that lives mostly in the region of Xinjiang.
Tensions have also risen over the way China has acted to repress political freedoms in Hong Kong.
Within hours of the US announcement, Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the House of Commons: “Many on both sides of the House have called for the UK Government to do the same and it is to our distress and annoyance that my government has failed so far to express a view on this. They should do it now.”
President Biden hosts a virtual White House Summit for Democracy for more than 100 countries this week. The administration says he intends to use the gathering “to announce both individual and collective commitments, reforms and initiatives to defend democracy and human rights at home and abroad”.
Senate foreign relations committee chairman Robert Menendez called on allies of the US to join the diplomatic boycott.
Provocation
He described the move as “a necessary step to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to human rights in the face of the Chinese government’s unconscionable abuses”.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the US of grandstanding and snubbing an event that would showcase China’s economic and technological development.
He described the boycott as “outright political provocation”, but did not say how China might retaliate.