The Winter Olympics will take place in China from February 4th to 20th, 2022.
(Photo: dpa)
Washington, Beijing The US has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games in China next year. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in Washington on Monday that President Joe Biden’s administration would not send diplomatic or official representatives to the Olympics in China. The background to this is the ongoing “genocide” in the Xinjiang autonomous region and other human rights violations.
The US government will cheer the American athletes from home, said Psaki. When asked why the US government refrained from a complete boycott of the Games, Psaki said they did not want to punish the athletes who had trained intensively for the Games. And the government is of the opinion that this step also sends out a “clear message”.
Psaki stressed that the US government had informed international partners of the decision and left it to them to make their own decisions.
The Winter Olympics will take place in China from February 4th to 20th, 2022. The authoritarian-ruled country is accused of human rights violations, especially against minorities such as the Muslim Uyghurs. Human rights groups cite the Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong autonomous regions as examples of Chinese reprisals. Again and again, boycott calls for the winter games there are loud. There is great political tension between the USA and China because of the human rights situation, but also because of various other controversial issues.
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China had threatened the US with “decisive countermeasures” in the event of a political boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. After reports of such considerations by US President Joe Biden, China’s Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian reacted with sharp criticism on Monday. Even before American politicians had even received an invitation, “they are exaggerating the boycott question,” said the spokesman.
“It is a mockery of the Olympic spirit, a political provocation and an attack on 1.4 billion Chinese,” Zhao Lijian told the press in Beijing. The Chinese people and the world would only see the hypocrisy and anti-Chinese nature of American politicians more clearly.
More: The Olympic Winter Games are threatening to turn into a debacle for Beijing