The Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of February’s Beijing Winter Olympics Monday over what White House press secretary Jen Psaki deemed China’s “egregious human rights abuses and atrocities.”
The move, first reported by CNN late Sunday, means that no US officials would attend events like the opening or closing ceremonies — but American athletes would still be allowed to compete.
“The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, and other human rights abuses,” Psaki said at the beginning of Monday’s White House press briefing, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
She added that while “the athletes on Team USA have our full support, we’ll be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home, we will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.”
“As the President has told [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping], standing up for human rights is in the DNA of Americans,” Psaki continued. “We have a fundamental commitment to promoting human rights, and we feel strongly in our position and we will continue to take actions to advance human rights in China and beyond.”
Earlier Monday, China’s government threatened “firm countermeasures” if the boycott went ahead and noted that no US official had formally been invited to attend the Games.
“Without being invited, American politicians keep hyping the so-called diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic, which is purely wishful thinking and grandstanding,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijan told reporters.
“If the US side is bent on going its own way, China will take firm countermeasures,” Zhao added, without detailing what those measures could be.
Psaki did not directly respond to Beijing on Monday, but did say China should be addressing issues that “meet the needs of the global community” to “be a part of leadership in the global community.”
It is common during the Olympics for the US and other countries to send prominent government officials as a show of support for the athletes and a diplomatic gesture toward the host nation. Earlier this year, first lady Jill Biden attended the rescheduled 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, while second gentleman Doug Emhoff showed up at the Paralympic Games.
Biden and Xi did not discuss the Olympics when the two met for a virtual summit last month, according to the White House.
Republican lawmakers and human rights activists have called for a full boycott of the Olympics in response to China’s human rights abuses — most notably genocidal actions against Uyghur Muslims in the northwest province of Xinjiang.
Psaki declined Monday to say whether such a move was ever considered by the White House, nor did she say whether the Biden administration would attempt to persuade other nations to join the diplomatic boycott.
“We will be rooting for the athletes from home,” the press secretary reiterated. “I am an Olympics-obsessed person, so I’m looking forward to doing that. But I think this is just an indication that it cannot be business as usual — that not sending a diplomatic delegation sends that message.”
When pressed on why the administration decided not to keep American athletes at home, Psaki noted that the White House did not feel like “it was the right step to penalize athletes who had been training, preparing for this moment.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), praised the boycott announcement, calling it “absolutely the right decision.”
“I commend the Biden Administration’s announcement that there will be no official U.S. representation at the 2022 Beijing Olympics,” Meeks said. “With the PRC engaged in a genocide in Xinjiang, this is absolutely the right decision. The international community should not be helping the PRC whitewash its atrocities against Uyghurs [sic] and other minorities.”
With the United States now leading by taking a clear stand, I am calling on other countries to join in refusing to send official delegations to the Olympics,” Meeks added. “We need to speak with one voice and make clear that silence is not an option when any country, no matter how powerful, grossly undermines universal human rights.”
The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), called the administration’s move “the obvious choice” and urged more action to “protect Olympians and deny the propaganda value of this event for the [Chinese Communist Party].”
“I urge President Biden to encourage U.S. allies and partners to hold the IOC [International Olympic Committee] and CCP accountable for their disregard for human rights by joining us in a diplomatic boycott,” McCaul said. “And I urge the Biden Administration to demand the IOC protect the free speech and privacy of all participants. These Olympics are a key opportunity for the CCP to normalize their human rights atrocities – including genocide—and the free world must unite to reject them.”
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter ordered a full US boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A total of 65 countries declined to participate in the Moscow Games. The Soviet Union reciprocated by leading a boycott of its own four years later, when the Olympics were held in Los Angeles.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place Feb. 4 through Feb. 20. It will be Beijing’s second time hosting an Olympics, having previously been the site of the 2008 Summer Games.
