North Korea: Genocide Olympics a ‘Great Victory’ for China

North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong-un described Beijing’s hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games as a “great victory” for China in a statement issued by North Korea’s state-run broadcaster Voice of Korea (VOK) on Friday.

“It is another great victory of socialist China that the Beijing Winter Olympic Games are successfully held despite the worldwide health crisis and unprecedentedly arduous circumstances,” Kim said according to a report by VOK on February 4.

The 2022 Winter Olympics began in Beijing on February 4 and will last through February 20. Pyongyang announced on January 7 its decision to boycott the event, making it the only country in the world to do so. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the development, citing a letter to the Chinese Communist Party from North Korea’s national Olympic committee and sports ministry.

Pyongyang said in the letter it chose not to send athletes to participate in the Games in part because North Korea objected to alleged attempts by the U.S. to prevent Beijing from successfully launching the event.

“We could not take part in the Olympics due to the hostile forces’ moves and the worldwide pandemic,” the letter read.

“[T]he U.S. and its vassal forces are getting ever more undisguised in their moves against China aimed at preventing the successful opening of the Olympics,” the letter continued.

Pyongyang said it rejected the alleged machinations and described them as an “insult to the spirit of the international Olympic Charter and as a base act of attempting to disgrace the international image of China.”

In reality, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in September 2021 banned North Korea from the 2022 Winter Olympics. The IOC said it prohibited Pyongyang from playing the Winter Games because it refused to send an athletic team to the 2021 Summer Olympics, which took place in Tokyo, Japan, from July 23, 2021, to August 8, 2021.

“IOC President Thomas Bach said at the time that individual athletes from North Korea who qualify to compete in Beijing could still be accepted,” the Associated Press (AP) recalled on January 7 of Pyongyang’s continued ability to participate in the 2022 Winter Games despite the official ban.

“Despite the IOC decision, there was still hope in Seoul and elsewhere that the Games could serve as a venue for reconciliation between the rival Koreas with the support of the IOC,” the AP noted on January 7. “At the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, athletes from the rival countries marched together in the opening ceremony and fielded a single team in women’s hockey.”