Biden Administration to Announce Diplomatic Boycott of 2022 Beijing Olympics: Report
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The United States will not have a diplomatic presence at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, reported The Washington Post on Tuesday, citing “several sources familiar with the plans.”
The boycott is a protest over China’s human rights record, which has included genocide of Uygur Muslims in the Xinjiang province.
Post foreign affairs columnist Josh Rogin, citing Biden administration sources, wrote that “a formal recommendation has been made to the president and he is expected to approve it before the end of the month.”
The scoop comes a day after President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in a virtual summit. However, “the timing of this process” behind the pending boycott decision wasn’t connected to the video call.
In a readout of the virtual summit, the White House said, “President Biden raised concerns about the [People’s Republic of China’s] practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, as well as human rights more broadly.”
According to Rogin:
Biden administration officials have been virtually silent on Olympics-related issues in recent months, refusing to speculate on whether Biden would support a full athlete boycott (as human rights groups and activists are calling for), or a more limited boycott, or no boycott at all. Now that the Biden-Xi virtual summit is complete, sources said, the administration has one less reason to hold off on announcing the diplomatic boycott. The administration will inform allies but leave them to make their own decisions on whether to follow the U.S. lead.
The White House and State Department declined to comment to the Post.
