The United States is facing increasing calls to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to China’s human rights violations

The games are still 10 months away – a period that may seem longer given the uncertainty surrounding the current phase of the coronavirus pandemic. But it is not too early for the event to turn into a bright spot. Critics of China’s ruling Communist Party – including a coalition of more than 180 rights organizations – argue that the regime’s record of human rights and geopolitical abuses should deny it the right to polish its image with a spectacle like the Olympics. The announcement below “Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Olympic Games in 2015, the same year it cracked down on lawyers and activists across China,” Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao wrote earlier this year. Since then, two journalists have been arrested. Harassment and assault of activists and dissidents even outside China’s borders; Closing down non-governmental organizations; Demolished Christian churches, Tibetan temples and Muslim mosques; Falun Gong believers persecuted, sometimes even to death; His control over the media, the Internet, universities and publishers has sharply increased. ”Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during last week’s event,“ I don’t think that any American should go and participate in the “genocide Olympiad”. He was referring to reports of mass rape and sterilization of Uyghur and Kazakh women by state authorities in China’s Xinjiang region, which some experts and the US State Department say amounts to genocide, and boycotting the Olympic Games has become a common issue among Republicans. “The world is watching our next move,” said Representative John Katko (RNY). The story continues without announcing “given China’s terrible human rights record, false mishandling of COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak, and external hostility,” he argued in a policy paper from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, which also insisted that the United States could Tapping into international concern about the Olympics to force a “course correction” within the ruling clique in Beijing. This week, first, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday that boycotting the Winter Olympics is “something we definitely want to discuss” with like-minded allies. But the State Department later clarified that no high-level discussions about the boycott were planned. The next day, White House press secretary Jane Psaki tried to get rid of the matter. “We have not discussed, nor are we discussing, any joint boycott with allies and partners,” she said. Last week, Susan Lyons, Chair of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said her organization opposes “athletes.” The boycott is because it has been shown to negatively affect athletes while not effectively addressing global issues. The United States’ boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the subsequent Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles are largely cited as unfortunate episodes of Cold War events that mostly harmed qualified participants. Apolitical orientation. “Given the diverse participation in the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee must remain impartial on all global political issues,” the International Olympic Committee said in a statement to Axios, adding that despite its commitment to upholding human rights, the International Olympic Committee “does not have it.” Any of the mandate or the ability to change the laws or political system of a sovereign country. ”Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said,“ The politicization of sport will harm the spirit of the Olympic Charter and the interests of athletes from all countries. ” Zhao, whose government denies international assessments of what is happening in Xinjiang, has also threatened an unspecified “strong Chinese response” if the boycott continues, but major sporting events – especially international events like the Olympics – always carry a political dimension. Perhaps the most famous Olympic moment of the last century was political protest. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was an upcoming party for a rising China, a national competition that showcased its burgeoning soft power, in a booming metropolis as entire communities were demolished to make way for Olympic venues. Then President George W. Bush attended, ignoring human rights concerns in favor of participation. The story continues without advertising. The picture is less rosy now, and there is little chance of a high-ranking US political delegation venturing to Beijing in February. “Athletes should participate and the competition should be televised, but government officials and companies should stay out,” wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, echoing last month’s call from Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah): “Athletes should participate and the competition must be televised, but government officials and companies should stay out,” echoing last month’s call From Senator Mitt Romney (Republic of Utah) for the “diplomatic boycott of the games. I hope athletes while in Beijing will use every opportunity to draw attention to repression in Xinjiang or elsewhere.” The boycott issue remains sensitive: foreign governments and companies The multinational is wary of luring China’s anger – and some companies have already struggled to speak out about alleged mass internment camps and forced labor practices in Xinjiang. Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Bloomberg News: That there be a ban on imports of selected products from countries that indicate a willingness to avoid games and boycott companies from those countries. ”This is even more true of countries that are more associated with investment and trade. Chinese. But in the United States, the spotlight has been put on the spotlight on a list of powerful American companies sponsoring the Olympics. While many of these companies have found their voice politically at home, they have largely avoided reckoning with the wider crackdown in Xinjiang. The story continues beneath the ad “Can these companies really expect us to take their congratulations on gender equality while Uighurs are being raped, sterilized, and forced into prostitution?” Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hayatt wrote. “There are more than 10 months left before the opening of the Winter Olympics. Companies can say to the Chinese government: Free the camps. Let the Uyghurs live in peace. Allow outside observers to come to see that you have done so. Then let the games begin.”