President Joe Biden would not commit to a boycott of the Winter Olympics next year in Beijing, China, despite his administration declaring China guilty of genocide. Biden told reporters Thursday he was “considering” a diplomatic boycott.
When asked if he supported a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympic Games, Biden told reporters at the White House that it was “something we are considering.”
A “diplomatic” boycott would not be a boycott but, rather, the absence of government officials at the games. America’s athletes would still participate – and face growing threats to their physical integrity in light of a nationwide uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak and the Chinese regime openly disappearing athletes it finds inconvenient.
China is currently running a concentration camp system believed to be made up of hundreds of camps used to imprison, torture, enslave, and kill members of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority, as well as others belonging to majority-Muslim ethnic groups. Survivors have attested to gang rape, electroshock, forced sterilization, slavery, and other atrocities.
Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared the treatment of the Uyghurs in China a “genocide” in March.
That declaration has not led to Biden considering an actual boycott of the Olympics, the world’s most prestigious sports event.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic sponsors have also refused to back out of allowing China to preside over the games despite its ongoing atrocities and its spread of authoritarianism internationally. The Olympic torch ceremony in Athens, Greece, this year resulted in the arbitrary arrest and abuse of not only anti-communist human rights activists there, but, reportedly, random Asian-looking people who the Greek police apparently detained in an effort to prevent protests against China.
First lady Jill Biden led a group of Biden officials to the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo this year to represent the United States.
Reports citing anonymous sources claimed this week that Biden will soon announce a diplomatic boycott.
The White House said that Biden did not discuss the Olympic Games with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping during their three-hour video conference meeting on Monday.
Sen. Tom Cotton on Thursday called for Biden to level a “complete and total boycott” of the Olympics in Beijing with “no athletes, no administration officials, no corporate sponsors.”
“We should boycott these games because of China’s crimes against the United States and the civilized world and its own people,” he said.