Considering diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics: Biden

The United States is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing scheduled next year. Addressing reporters at the White House, US President Joe Biden on Thursday said that the United States was considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which observers feel is an attempt by Washington to show toughness over China’s human rights abuses.

On the sidelines of a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden said, “Something we are considering,” when asked by a reporter about the US planning a diplomatic boycott.

The US President’s recent comment came after he had a long-awaited video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, where both the leaders said that they wanted to ensure stability and prevent any type of conflict between Washington and Beijing. The human rights groups in the United States have pressurized the leadership in Washington to speak against China’s human rights abuses, in the Xinjiang region of China about which different international agencies and human rights watch groups argue that state repression faced by the Uyghur Muslims in the province qualifies as genocide.

Western human rights groups say that at least two million Uyghurs and other minorities, mostly Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.

China’s government brushed off the rights accusations as “inconsistent with truth and completely groundless,” and said that “politicising sports is against the Olympic spirit, and harms the interests of athletes from all countries”.

Satish Jha, a Delhi University professor of political science told The Daily Guardian, “We have entered into a new kind of cold war. The United States had to show that it is acting tough on China. The world is watching the United States closely. The boycott will send a signal across the world that the US is willing to counter Beijing. The countries which are facing Chinese aggression will also get emboldened by this and would feel that with an engaged US in the Asian continent there would be a rules-based order. The boycott will be an important development in the current political environment.”