FILE PHOTO: A Chinese flag flutters near the Olympic rings on the Olympic Tower in Beijing, China November 11, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
December 6, 2021
By Steve Holland, Humeyra Pamuk and Michael Martina
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China’s human rights “atrocities,” the White House said on Monday, after Beijing threatened unspecified “countermeasures” against any diplomatic boycott.
President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering such a boycott amid criticism of China’s human rights record, including what Washington says is genocide against minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang.
The move – despite a recent effort to stabilize ties with a video meeting last month between Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping – is certain to further strain the two superpowers’ relations which have been at their lowest point in decades.
“The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told a daily press briefing.
“U.S. 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,” Psaki said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
The diplomatic boycott, which has been encouraged https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-propose-adding-boycott-chinas-winter-olympics-defense-bill-2021-10-28 by some members of the U.S. Congress and rights advocacy groups for months, would not affect the attendance of American athletes, she said.
“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States has been consulting with allies on a “shared approach” to the Beijing Games. It was unclear if they would follow the U.S. lead.
“Canada remains deeply disturbed by the troubling reports of human rights violations in China,” Canada’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “We were notified of the U.S. decision and we will continue to discuss this matter with our partners and allies.”
The diplomatic boycott also puts corporate Olympic sponsors in “an awkward spot”, but fell short of the U.S. government implying they should cut ties, said Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports who has overseen deals to acquire the domestic TV broadcast rights for the Olympics.
“The most important issue (for the sponsors) is whether the U.S. team would attend,” Pilson said.
China’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news briefing earlier in Beijing that those calling for a boycott are “grandstanding” and should stop “so as not to affect the dialogue and cooperation between China and the United States in important areas.”
“If the U.S. insists in wilfully clinging to its course, China will take resolute countermeasures,” he said, without elaborating.
The United States is next due to host an Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles, raising the question of how China might respond in the interim.
Beijing says it opposes the politicization of sports, but it has punished American sports leagues in the past, including the National Basketball Association, for running afoul of its political red lines.
‘EXCITED AND READY’
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has faced criticism for turning a blind eye to China’s right record, said the Games should be “beyond politics”.
“The presence of government officials and diplomats is a purely political decision for each government, which the IOC in its political neutrality fully respects,” an IOC spokesperson said.
Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said in a statement following the boycott announcement that Team USA was “excited and ready to make the nation proud.”
“We greatly appreciate the unwavering support of the President and his administration and we know they will be cheering us on from home this winter,” she said.
Many U.S. athletes had argued it would have been unfair to ban them from the Games, and some U.S. lawmakers who supported not sending officials had said it was in the United States’ interests for its national anthem to be playing in Beijing as Americans received medals.
While a handful of prominent Republicans criticized Biden for not pursuing a full boycott, Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who led the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, said Biden had made the right choice.
Human rights groups also welcomed the move, but said Washington could do more to hold China accountable.
For China, which denies all rights abuses, Biden’s move is less a threat to the Games and more of an optics problem that Beijing fueled by threatening retaliation, experts said.
“It would have been a non-story if let alone,” said Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an associate professor of sport management at the George Washington University School of Business. “We typically do not send a large government delegation anyway, especially in COVID times.”
China plans to limit spectator attendance at the February Games, citing strict COVID-19 protocols, and Chinese state media have said Beijing does not intend to invite https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-not-inviting-western-politicians-who-threaten-boycott-beijing-winter-games-2021-11-29 Western politicians who have threatened a boycott.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the only leader of a major country who has accepted China’s invitation to attend.
Other countries, including Australia and Britain, are reported to be considering their own boycotts.
Stefano Sannino, chief of the European Union’s diplomatic service, said on Friday after meetings with U.S. officials in Washington that any boycott was in the domain of individual member states, not common EU foreign policy.
Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Beijing had options to retaliate – such as limiting bilateral dialogue, stalling visas, or hamstringing athletic delegations and journalists at the Games – all of which would yield their own diplomatic costs for China’s ruling Communist Party, especially if numerous countries followed suit.
“The ultimate origin of these tensions is China’s shift in a more autocratic direction. That’s the CCP’s choice, but it doesn’t mean the rest of the world simply has to remain silent,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Brad Heath，Trevor Hunnicutt, David Brunnstrom, Frank Pingue, Gabriel Crossley, Sheila Dang, Karolos Grohman, Amy Tennery and David Ljunggren; Writing by Michael Martina; Editing by Mary Milliken, Alexander Smith and Alistair Bell)
Source: One America News Network
