[Australia said it would join the
diplomatic boycott. Several others have signaled that they would find ways to
protest China’s human rights abuses.]
By Steven Lee Myers and Steven Erlanger
In less than two months, China will
open the 24th Winter Olympics in Beijing under the shadow of the coronavirus
pandemic and now also a diplomatic boycott intended to protest the host
country’s repressive policies.
The White House announcement on
Monday that it would send no official delegation prompted anger in Beijing,
where Chinese officials on Tuesday once again vowed to retaliate.
“This will only make people see the
sinister intentions of the American side and will only make the American side
lose more morality and credibility,” said a spokesman for China’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian.
A prominent columnist for state
media, Chen Weihua of China Daily, bitingly expressed
hope that Mr. Biden would live long enough to see China boycott the Summer
Olympics to be held in Los
Angeles in 2028.
Although the effect of Mr. Biden’s
decision on other countries remains to be seen, several have already signaled
that they, too, will seek ways to express displeasure with China’s policies
while stopping short of prohibiting athletes from attending.
The decision will be especially
complicated for European nations, which have sharply criticized China’s abuses
of human rights and democracy in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
The European Union has just renewed
for another year the business and travel restrictions it imposed a year
ago on officials involved in the crackdown on Uyghurs and other Muslims in
Xinjiang.
And in July, the European
Parliament, which often takes strong moral positions, overwhelmingly passed a
nonbinding resolution calling on diplomatic officials to boycott the
Winter Olympics “unless the Chinese Government demonstrates a
verifiable improvement in the human rights situation in Hong Kong, the Xinjiang
Uyghur Region, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and elsewhere in China.”
At the same time, many European
nations have extensive trade ties with Beijing that they do not want to
jeopardize, especially for a measure that is likely only to offend China, not
change it.
An official response on Tuesday
from the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, to a question
about the boycott offered no support for the American position.
Major sporting events like the
Olympics, with their universal audiences, “can be instrumental for spreading
positive values and promoting freedom and human rights at global level,” the
commission said in a statement. “We are ready to contribute to that end.
However, such platforms should not be used for political propaganda.”
Attendance at the Olympics in
whatever form is a decision for individual member states, which are sure to be
divided on this issue, as on much else.
Italy would not join the American
boycott, an Italian government official said on Tuesday, while France, Germany
and Britain were noncommittal.
If the Italian position changes,
however, it will be a direct blow to Beijing. Italy will host the Winter Games
in 2026 and would be expected by Olympic tradition to send official emissaries
to these Games, accepting the baton, as it were, from one host to another.
At a news conference on Wednesday
local time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, citing concerns
over human
rights abuses in Xinjiang and China’s criticism of Australia’s
plans for new nuclear submarines — along with Beijing’s reluctance to
discuss the issues — said the country’s government officials would “not be
going to China for these games. Australian athletes will though.”
Only a handful of world leaders
attended the Summer Games in Tokyo, which were held after a year’s delay
because of the coronavirus pandemic. They included President Emmanuel Macron of
France, whose country will host the next Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024, and
he may be expected to attend these games because of protocol.
His office said on Tuesday that Mr. Macron had
taken note of the U.S. diplomatic boycott and that France would “coordinate at
the European level” on the issue, Agence France-Presse reported.
“When we have concerns about human
rights we let the Chinese know,” Mr. Macron’s office said. “We took sanctions
related to Xinjiang last March.”
Germany has not sworn in its new
government yet, and while the coalition is expected to take a somewhat tougher
line on China, Olaf Scholz, the incoming chancellor, refused to provide an
answer on Tuesday. At a news conference, after a third question on the topic,
he simply said, “We think it’s important to do everything you can to make the world
work together internationally.”
Britain has made no decision on a
diplomatic boycott either, but there are calls from within the ruling
Conservative Party to do so
Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader
of the party and a vocal critic of Beijing’s policies, welcomed the U.S.
announcement and urged Britain to follow suit.
The British government “needs to do
the same and announce a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter
Olympics,” Mr.
Duncan Smith wrote on Twitter, adding in another post that many in
Parliament favor such a move.
The British government’s approach
to China has been toughening amid growing tension over Chinese policy in its
former colony, Hong Kong, a direct embarrassment to London. Speaking before the
U.S. announcement, Britain’s deputy prime minister and former foreign
secretary, Dominic Raab, told LBC News: “I can tell you categorically I will
not be attending the Winter Olympic Games.”
China’s critics praised the White
House for focusing international attention on China’s long record of human
rights abuses. Those include crackdowns in Tibet and Hong Kong, as well as in
Xinjiang, where more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims have cycled
through mass
detention and re-education camps.
The International Campaign for
Tibet said in a statement that a boycott was “the right choice both
morally and strategically.”
Canada and Australia, both of which have tangled diplomatically with
China this year, are also considering whether to join the boycott.
“Australia must not be complacent
but move ahead with speed to demonstrate our long commitment to upholding human
rights and calling out where they are breached,” Eric Abetz, a senator from
that country’s governing Liberal Party, said in a statement. He has been calling for a diplomatic boycott
since last year.
Although the American decision had
been expected and, administration officials said, conveyed to Beijing in
advance of Monday’s announcement, the Communist Party government appeared flustered,
as well as angered.
Censors appeared to bar searches
online for the word “boycott,” while initial reports in state media focused on
statements by Chinese officials calling the efforts a politicization of a
sporting event in violation of the Olympic spirit.
Officials in Beijing last week
tried to pre-empt any prospect of a diplomatic boycott by saying they would not
extend invitations to foreign leaders to attend the Winter Games, leaving that
task to national Olympic committees around the world instead.
That, however, contradicted a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last
month that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, would attend at the
invitation of China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Mr. Xi attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics
in Sochi in 2014 at a time when Russia, too, faced diplomatic boycotts.
For many countries, especially
China’s Asian neighbors, the question of how to engage with Beijing around the
Olympic Games has been fraught. Given the diplomatic sensitivities, some
nations have sidestepped any explicit rebuke of Beijing.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of
Japan said on Tuesday that his country had not yet decided who would represent
the country in Beijing, though some lawmakers have called for a boycott because
of human rights abuses, territorial disputes and Chinese aggression in regional
seas.
New Zealand said that it had also
expressed concerns about human rights in China, but that it would not send top
officials mostly because of the pandemic.
The obstacles to attending the
Beijing Olympics are not just diplomatic.
China has very stringent quarantine
rules, requiring everyone who enters the country to spend two weeks in
isolation, followed by a week or two of daily health monitoring at home or a
hotel, with many restrictions on travel and social interactions.
The annoyances of the pandemic
could diminish attendance, as they did in Tokyo. They could also give cover to
nations that would simply rather not attend.
Mr. Putin, an avid sportsman and an
increasingly close ally of Mr. Xi’s, has not yet given final confirmation of
his attendance despite China’s public statement last month that he would attend
the opening ceremony, to be held on Feb. 4 in Beijing’s National Stadium,
popularly known as the Bird’s Nest.
Steven Lee Myers reported from
Seoul, South Korea, and Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Reporting or research
was contributed by Yan Zhuang in Melbourne, Australia; Keith Bradsher and
Claire Fu in Beijing; Choe Sang-hun in Seoul; Hisako Ueno in Tokyo; Stephen
Castle in London; Gaia Pianigiani in Rome; Constant Méheut in Paris; and
Christopher F. Schuetze in Berlin.
Steven Lee Myers is the Beijing
bureau chief for The New York Times. He joined The Times in 1989 and has
previously worked as a correspondent in Moscow, Baghdad and Washington. He is
the author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin,” published
by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015. @stevenleemyers • Facebook
Steven Erlanger is the chief
diplomatic correspondent in Europe, based in Brussels. He previously reported
from London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Moscow and Bangkok. @StevenErlanger
