NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics touted China as “a champion of the developing world” and highlighted the presence of a Uyghur participant as an “in-your-face response” to those who condemn the Games as a celebration of genocide.
The Chinese Communist Party is currently engaging in genocide against the Uyghur people, forcing millions into concentration camps, imposing widespread forced sterilization policies, and enslaving significant portions of that population. The abuses – along with violent repression of political dissidents, members of multiple religious faiths, and other ethnic minorities – have led to calls around the world for countries, sponsors, and broadcasters like NBC to boycott the Winter Olympics.
No government in the world boycotted the Olympics on those grounds. One country, North Korea, announced an Olympics boycott in a bizarre attempt to condemn the United States, which was not involved in the planning or execution of the event. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned North Korea from the Games last year, however, further rendering the protest impotent.
One NBC announcer claimed that “Western countries [are] boycotting these Olympics over human rights issues,” an apparent reference to a failed effort by the government of President Joe Biden to organize a “diplomatic boycott” of the Olympics. A “diplomatic boycott” is not a boycott as diplomats do not compete in Olympic sports, but Biden’s administration could not even put together that meager effort, and was later exposed as applying for visas so that diplomats could attend the event.
The anchor made the case, anyway, that China had defied this poor “boycott” attempt.
“Yeah, it’s worth remembering that while Western countries may be boycotting these Olympics over human rights issues, China styles itself as a champion of the developing world, and it has plenty of support in countries from Africa to Latin America where its investments are building up local economies,” the anchor said.
Chinese Communist Leader Xi Jinping selected Uyghur athlete Dinigeer Yilamujiang to co-carry the final torch before co-lighting the Olympic flames with another athlete, according to Reuters. During the moment, NBC Broadcaster Savannah Guthrie called the move an “in-your-face response” to Western nations.
Guthrie said:
This moment is quite provocative. It’s a statement from the Chinese President [sic] Xi Jinping to choose an athlete from the Uyghur minority. It is an in-your-face response to those Western nations, including the U.S., who have called this Chinese treatment of that group genocide and diplomatically boycotted these games.
Again, the broadcast did not clarify that the United States failed to keep its promise not to send diplomats to the event.
Andy Browne, the editorial director of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, who NBC News dubbed a “China expert,” called the move a “riposte” to Biden during the broadcast, NBC News reported.
“This was a riposte to President Joe Biden for skipping these Olympics and a message to the West: China won’t be lectured to on human rights, or on any other issue,” Brown said, per NBC News.
Browne framed the extensively documented Uyghur genocide as a series of disorganized, spurious allegations by various Western countries.
“They allege that this is a massive program of social engineering aimed at suppressing Muslim Uyghur culture, language, tradition, identity,” said Browne, per Reuters. “They allege a host of human rights abuses, forced labor, coercive birth control practices, indoctrination, and that this all adds up to a form of cultural genocide.”
Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Browne’s media company, has enthusiastically supported Xi and insisted that he is “not a dictator,” Breitbart News reported.
“The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public,” Bloomberg claimed during an interview with Margaret Hoover on PBS’s Firing Line in 2019. “When the public says ‘I can’t breathe the air,’ Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents, or he’s not going to survive.”