Russian president Vladimir Putin who has said he will attend the 2022 Winter Olympics has also called the decision about a diplomatic boycott " unacceptable and erroneous", and "an attempt to curb China's growth." The ruling Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection even issued a response on its website entitled "The Spirit of the Olympic Charter Cannot be Tarnished" saying that "some Western anti-China politicians" have shown a "defensive Cold War mentality aimed at politicizing sport," calling it a "clear violation of the Olympic spirit and a challenge to all people who love the Olympic movement."
was attempting to interfere with the Beijing Games "out of ideological prejudice and based on lies and rumours," and that the diplomatic boycott "seriously violates the principle of political neutrality of sports established by the Olympic Charter and runs counter to the Olympic motto ‘more united’." Zhao Lijian, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department of the People's Republic of China, said that the U.S. In a statement, the spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the UN said that "the US just wants to politicize sports, create divisions and provoke confrontation." Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the IOC issued a statement from president Thomas Bach, who said that "the presence of government officials is a purely political decision for each government … And also for this political decision, the principle of the political neutrality of the IOC applies."Ĭhina was quick to go down that road as well and in the following days they called Washington’s move a "self-directed political farce". announcement of its diplomatic boycott, more countries joined. To demonstrate how useful the opening ceremony can be in terms of nationalic and political messaging, this analysis will provide examples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia which was also met with international criticism before the Games took place. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing will be no different. In 2008, China showed their extraordinary ability to use the opening ceremony politically. And China has paid the IOC for one of the best public relations tools in the world: The opening ceremony of the Olympics with a reach of billions of viewers.
While a diplomatic boycott is a clear political statement, it can also be used politically and in favour of the host nation. When the Biden administration announced on 6 December 2021 that they would not send any official representatives to the Games, it once again demonstrated the highly political nature of the Olympics. to stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, which is Chinese president Xi Jinping’s prestige project. The situation in Xinjiang has caused the U.S. Genocide Games" during a protest in London to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic games. In April 2021, Human Rights Watch published a report on the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity in 2021, including mass arbitrary detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious erasure, separation of families, forced labour, and sexual violence and violations of reproductive rights against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the northwest region of Xinjiang.Ī protestor holding a placard that says "Free Uyghurs.
In 2014, a year before China was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics, China escalated crackdowns in the Xinjian region. In fact, the situation has worsened since 2008. However, this time around, there are no promises from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Olympic Committees, or sports leaders that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will be a "force for good" and improve human rights in China as then-president of the IOC Jacque Rogge said before the Olympics in 2008. In a few weeks, Beijing will host the winter edition of the Olympics which makes it the first city in modern history to host both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
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