US officially boycotts Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

The United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, reports BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

Winter Olympics 2022 is the 24th Winter Olympics.

On July 31, 2015, at the session of the International Olympic Committee in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing was named the capital of the Olympic Games, which will become the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

The United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in China.

Other countries may follow their example.

Beijing sharply criticized Washington's decision, calling it an "ideological prejudice."

What did the USA decide

According to White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, the official US delegation will not go to the Games due to the human rights situation in China.

“Given the People's Republic of China's genocide in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses, the Biden administration will not send a diplomatic or official delegation to the 2022 Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing,” Psaki said, adding that Washington does not intend to contribute to the fanfare of the Olympic Games.

The Uyghur genocide is a series of human rights violations committed by the Chinese government against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang.

Since 2014, the Chinese government has pursued a policy that has resulted in over a million Muslims (most of them Uighurs) imprisoned in so-called “re-education camps” without trial; it is the largest persecution of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II.

At the same time, according to Psaki, the US Olympic team will not be affected by the diplomatic boycott; they will have the full support of the American government, which “does not consider it the right step to punish athletes who were preparing for the competition.”

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The Olympic Games are usually attended by top officials of states and governments.

This year, First Lady Jill Biden led the US delegation to the Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony.

How China responded

China called Washington's move "a political farce directed against itself."

“The US wants to politicize sports, cause divisions and provoke confrontation. The success of the Games does not depend on the presence of government officials from a handful of countries,” a spokesman for the Chinese mission to the UN said in a statement.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington called the boycott a "serious distortion of the spirit of the Olympic Charter."

“No one will care whether these people come or not, and it will not in any way affect the success of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics,” embassy spokesman Liu Peng Yu said, as quoted by Reuters.

He added that no invitations to American politicians had been received to the Games, “so this diplomatic boycott is just coming out of nowhere.”

Even before Psaki's announcement, Beijing had warned that if the Olympics were boycotted, they would take drastic countermeasures.

The reaction of the IOC and Russia

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it respects the US decision.

“The presence of government officials and diplomats is a purely political decision of each government, which the IOC, in its political neutrality, respects fully,” the IOC statement said.

The Olympic Games are out of politics, the organization stressed.

Following the United States, New Zealand also announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games in Beijing, but not for political reasons, but in connection with covid restrictions.

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Other countries, including Britain and Australia, are considering following the US example.

The Kremlin said in response to the US decision that politics should not interfere with sports.

“It is, in fact, in the interests of American athletes that the Olympics will take place with or without them. Otherwise, it is difficult to say to what extent this is a boycott, because the Olympics are being held under fairly strict conditions related to pandemic restrictions. If my memory serves me correctly, the Chinese side long ago agreed with the IOC on an option where official representatives would not be invited. Therefore, further this is probably a question between the Chinese organizers and the Americans,” said Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

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