Olympic Committee ignores China’s human-rights abuses — violating its own rules
If there were a gold medal for cowardice, it would go to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for refusing to even the raise the issue of China’s humanrights abuses at the Winter Olympics that have just started in Beijing.
The silver medal should go to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres. He attended the , even though several of the world’s biggest democracies and human-groups asked him to stay at home and U.N. human-rights experts strongly criticized China’s ongoing ethnic repression and political crackdowns in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
And the bronze medal for disregard of human rights should go the heads of state of Russia, Argentina, Ecuador and about 15 other countries that attended the Games’ inaugural ceremony, defying a diplomatic boycott by the world’s major democracies. U.S. President Biden and the heads of state of Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark and Japan, among others, protested China humanrights transgressions by refusing to attend the Games, while allowing their athletes to participate.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, referring to the mass internment, forced labor and other forms of repression of millions of ethnic Uighurs in the Western region of Xinjiang, said there is an “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity” taking place.
To be fair, it would be hard for many countries to meet the demand by hundreds of human-rights groups to boycott the Beijing Olympics altogether or to use the occasion to embarrass China’s regime by publicly denouncing it rights violations. China is the world’s second-largest economy and, for many countries, their largest export market.
But the least that the
IOC, Guterres and the visiting dignitaries could have done is send representatives to the games. Instead, they legitimized China’s regime, giving it a propaganda boost by attending the opening ceremony themselves.
The IOC has a long tradition of disregard for human rights, despite its own charter’s claim — published in its website — that, “At all times, the IOC recognises and upholds human rights.” But in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the IOC did little to press China to comply with promises to allow restricted demonstrations by Tibet activists. And this time, it is doing even less, human-rights groups say.
“The IOC’s behavior has been appalling,” Sophie Richardson told me. She is China director for the Human Rights Watch advocacy group. “Not only did the IOC fail to impose any sanctions on China after the 2008 Olympics, but it rewarded the Chinese government by giving them a new round of games this year.”
Under the U.N.’s guiding principles for businesses, the IOC has a duty to do consider human rights in considering which countries to pick as Olympics hosts.
The IOC has included human-rights clauses in its contracts with Paris for the 2024 Olympics and with Milan for the 2026 Olympics. But it has done nothing of the sort with China, critics say.
“That’s an extraordinary slap in the face to the millions of victims of Chinese human-rights violations,” Richardson said. “There will be atrocities while the IOC, Guterres and the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and other countries are standing there and applauding in Beijing.”
The IOC says it decided to include human-rights clauses in future contracts with host countries in 2017, but that its contract with China had been signed two years earlier and, therefore, does not have such provisions. Still, the IOC could have at least raised the issue of rights violations there, but has chosen to remain silent.
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez should be especially ashamed of attending the opening ceremonies, considering that, in December, his country was elected president of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Couldn’t the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and other democracies have visited China after the Olympics? And shouldn’t multinational companies that are sponsoring the Olympics be held accountable for their roles, too?
We can only hope that some of the Beijing Olympics’ 2,700 participating foreign athletes will have more guts than the IOC, visiting dignitaries and corporate sponsors to speak out on China’s human-rights abuses. Otherwise, if there is no reputational cost, these games will embolden China — and others — to further clamp down on human rights and basic freedoms.
Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show at 7 p.m. Sundays on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera; Blog: www.andresoppenheimer.com