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Thread: US announces diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympic Games in Beijing

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    Default US announces diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympic Games in Beijing

    US announces diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympic Games in Beijing

    7 December 2021

    WASHINGTON - The US will not send officials to the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing next year in the light of China's human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere, the White House said on Monday (Dec 6).

    "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics Games, given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses," said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, using the People's Republic of China's formal name.

    American athletes will not be affected and can still compete in the Games, which start on Feb 4.

    "The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 per cent as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the Games," said Ms Psaki.

    She said that sending 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 cannot do that".

    The US position is that Beijing's policies regarding Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, which it says include restrictions on their freedoms, surveillance and forced sterilisations, amount to genocide.

    China had previously vowed to retaliate if the diplomatic snub went ahead. Responding to earlier reports of an imminent announcement of the boycott, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday labelled it "pure grandstanding" and said the US should avoid politicising sports.

    The United States will host the 2028 Winter Games in Los Angeles, raising questions about whether China might give that the cold shoulder in response.

    Similar tit-for-tat boycotts occurred in 1980, when the US barred its athletes from competing in Moscow and led a 65-nation boycott to protest the then Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Four years later, the USSR and its allies shunned the 1984 Games in Los Angeles in retaliation.

    But the boycott was deeply unpopular among athletes, who lost their chance at glory. Nearly half of the 466 members of Team USA that year never had another shot at the Olympics, according to a Washington Post tally in July.

    Sporting organisations, including the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), had campaigned against an athlete boycott, protesting that it harms only athletes and has little effect on a country's policies.

    "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," said USOPC chief executive Sarah Hirshland in a statement on Monday.

    "Competing on behalf of the United States is an honour and a privilege, and Team USA is excited and ready to make the nation proud," she added.

    Political pressure for a diplomatic boycott had been building for months, with several US lawmakers vocal in their calls for one.

    Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said: "The international community should not be helping the PRC whitewash its atrocities against Uighurs and other minorities."

    In a statement, he called on more countries to join with diplomatic boycotts of their own.

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    Default Re: US announces diplomatic boycott of Winter Olympic Games in Beijing

    Four takeaways from the US diplomatic boycott of Beijing's Winter Olympics

    7 December 2021

    WASHINGTON - The United States confirmed on Monday (Dec 6) that it will not send officials to attend the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing next year, in the light of China's human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere.

    Here is a look at four key issues.

    1. Beijing will retaliate - but how?

    The White House's confirmation is certain to trigger retaliation from China, which has vowed to respond with resolute countermeasures.

    But in what form this takes will depend on how aggressively the Joe Biden administration pressures others to follow suit, and whether other countries will join the boycott, said Eurasia Group analysts.

    "The more countries that join, the more diluted Beijing's retaliation will be, decreasing the average severity of any crackdowns," they wrote in a note on Monday.

    Most likely to join the US are Anglosphere allies who have "embraced more confrontational stances towards Beijing but who wanted to wait for Washington's decision to provide diplomatic cover for their own boycotts", namely Canada, Australia, and Britain, they said.

    But the analysts reckon that President Biden will struggle to assemble a large coalition of boycott. Europe has so far been reluctant to commit to a boycott, and America's allies in East Asia, namely Japan and South Korea, are also unlikely to join.

    Another route that Beijing can take is to tacitly endorse consumer boycotts of prominent US brands, said the Eurasia Group analysts.

    Questions have been raised about whether Beijing might shun the 2028 Winter Games in response, which Los Angeles is slated to host.

    But Dr Susan Brownell of the University of Missouri-St Louis, an expert on Chinese sports and the Olympics, did not expect China to do so.

    "Since its fundamental position is that the Olympic Games should not be politicised, it would be hypocritical for it to turn around and boycott the 2028 Olympic Games," she told The Straits Times.

    2. China has been through this before

    Beijing's leadership has been through a similar furore over its human rights record, when activists and some lawmakers protested its hosting of the Summer Games in 2008.

    "The leadership seemed to conclude from the 2008 Olympics that the criticism from the developed West would never entirely disappear no matter what China did, because the fundamental problem was that the developed West wanted to contain China's growing global influence," said Dr Brownell.

    "I suspect that the leadership had already steeled itself to endure these kinds of attacks, and its pride will not be wounded at this early period," she added.

    3. Better a diplomatic boycott than an athlete boycott

    American athletes can still compete in next year's Games in Beijing, which was not the case with the US boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, held in protest of the then Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. That triggered a Soviet boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles in response.

    The Biden administration would likely have concluded that a diplomatic boycott, instead of an athlete boycott, was an appropriate way to signal its disapproval of China's human rights record while not inadvertently punishing its own athletes.

    "After the double boycotts of the early 1980s, countries have been less inclined to institute athlete boycotts, as the general sentiment from athletes who missed out on the Olympics is that their dreams were squelched in the name of making a political statement," Pacific University political scientist Jules Boykoff, a retired soccer player who has represented the US in international competitions, told ST.

    "A diplomatic boycott avoids that scenario while attempting to prevent the host from engaging in 'sportswashing' - using a mega sports event to try to launder its reputation on the world stage," added Dr Boykoff, an author of four books on the Olympics.

    4. Individual athletes likely to speak up

    Official delegations aside, individual athletes are likely to speak up about China's human rights record, said analysts.

    "Beijing will try to stifle these statements, while home governments and Olympic sponsors will come under pressure to support them," said the Eurasia Group analysts.

    The case of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who appeared to have been silenced by the Chinese government last month after her allegation that a top official had sexually assaulted her, was also fairly recent. China's rights record and the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) response will, therefore, be fresh on their minds, said analysts.

    The IOC helped arrange and publicise a video call with Ms Peng, in a bid to establish that she was well, but many critics remained unconvinced.

    Dr Boykoff said: "In the recent situation involving Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, the International Olympic Committee clearly sided with Chinese authorities, putting their own economic interests ahead of athlete rights and safety. In doing so, the IOC sent the clear message to athletes that, in the clutch, it does not have their backs.

    "Still, many Olympians are committed to social justice causes, and if that means speaking out against injustice, then perhaps nothing can stop them."

    https://www.straitstimes.com/world/u...inter-olympics

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