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Critics of China’s human rights record have a new sanction in mind for Beijing: withdrawing the city from the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Lawmakers from several major Olympic countries, including the Netherlands, Canada and the United States, have recently said that the 2022 Games should be withdrawn from China because of its crackdown on its Uighur Muslim minority in the United States. northwest region of Xinjiang. The Dutch and Canadian parliaments have officially labeled this repression as “genocide,” as the U.S. State Department has done.
In an interview, Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a Dutch MP from the ruling coalition’s D66 party, noted “the largest detention of an ethnic minority since World War II” and highlighted stories of forced sterilization and rape as evidence that China should be stripped of the Olympics. .
Sjoerdsma, whose liberal social party initiated the Dutch motion to call the treatment of the Uyghur minority a genocide, said athletes should decide for themselves whether to go to Beijing, but would prefer the International Olympic Committee (IOC) , which organizes the games, assigned the event to another country.
“Major sports organizations, whether the Olympics or football, should consider the human rights situation in a possible host country much more closely and, if it is already assigned … see how the situation develops “, he said.
In early February, a group of seven U.S. Republican senators, including Rick Scott of Florida, called for the move to the Beijing Games. In mid-February, Canadian opposition Conservative leader Erin O’Toole made a similar demand.
This is not the first time the location of the upcoming Olympics has sparked debate. Before the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany, teams from several countries, including the United States, considered staying away. In 1980, the American team boycotted the Moscow Olympics after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
What effect bubble resistance has on Beijing as a host of 2022 remains to be seen. Protests also erupted ahead of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics over China’s policies in Tibet, observers note, but the event went ahead as planned.
Ties Dams, a Chinese researcher at the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think tank, said the idea of pressuring the Chinese government to change the treatment of the Uyghur minority by threatening to boycott the Olympics is unlikely to happen and be “naive.” .
However, he said the motion in the Dutch parliament to describe the treatment of the Uyghur people as genocide could at least force the new government, which will be elected on March 17, to choose sides and support China’s blatant stance taken by the administration of US President Joe Biden or the more cooperative approach taken by the chancellor German Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Take European leadership?
The Netherlands, a traditional source for the Winter Olympics thanks to its dominance in speed skating events, has recently emerged as an advocate of the use of sporting events to demand host nations their policies of human rights.
Dutch lawmakers last month passed a motion calling on the Dutch king and prime minister not to attend the Qatar World Cup if the Netherlands qualifies for next year’s tournament, citing the “terrible conditions “for migrant workers building stadiums.
A similar motion for the Olympics was rejected, but lawmaker Sjoerdsma said he hoped it could still be passed in the coming weeks, and it is likely that some parties will change positions.
However, the Olympic Committee of the Netherlands presented a cautionary note on how far the country could be prepared to go. In response to questions about a potential Dutch boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, a committee spokesman said: “In the Netherlands, we have the policy that there is only talk of a sports boycott if the Netherlands as a country they participate in a larger international country. boycott various sectors. That is not the case. “
Canadian Olympic leaders, ahead of the national parliament’s declaration of genocide, also said they would not support the boycott.
In an opinion piece in early February (which remains his position), the heads of the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees wrote that sports boycotts amounted to “little more than a convenient and politically economical alternative to real diplomacy and significant “.
Chinese retreat
China, angered by pro-Tibet protests ahead of the 2008 Games, has made it clear that any 2022 boycott threat is taken very seriously.
“It is very irresponsible for anyone to try to interfere with, obstruct or disrupt the organization and operation of the [Winter] The Olympics, for political reasons, “Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last month in response to calls for an international boycott.
“We believe these movements would not be supported by the international community and are doomed to failure,” Wang added.
Shortly afterwards, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell that both sides should “seize the opportunity of the Beijing Winter Olympics in Beijing.” next year to improve exchanges on winter sports “and” encourage new highlights “in bilateral cooperation.
In the same call, Wang also said that China “opposes the fabrication and dissemination of lies and false news” in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
For its part, the IOC has tried to stay out of politics, telling POLITICO to remain “neutral” on all global political issues.
“Granting the Olympic Games to a National Olympic Committee (NOC) does not mean that the IOC is in line with the political structure, social circumstances or human rights standards of your country,” he said.
It is a position that has attracted its own criticism. Jules Boykoff, a professor at the University of the Pacific who has written extensively about the Olympics, accused the IOC of “hypocrisy.”
“The IOC has shown an unfortunate propensity to step away from human rights atrocities to make sure the games continue,” Boykoff said.
“The Olympic Charter is full of powerful ideas about equality and anti-discrimination, but the IOC ignores its own Charter when it suits them to do so,” he said.
But what effect does geopolitical maneuver have on the real stars of any Olympics?
Olympic competitors have been in a difficult position, said Rob Koehler of Global Athlete, an athlete-led sports movement.
“As governments call for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, athletes are being re-used as pawns,” Koehler said. “The IOC and the CPI are primarily responsible for putting athletes in this position.”
“The IOC and the CPI decided to award the games to a country with an abysmal history of human rights,” he said.
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