Diplomatic Tussle Over Beijing Olympics

The Biden Administration said that they made this decision over China’s mass detention camps which are called “re-education camps” as well, the Chinese sterilization campaign against Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in the western provinces of the country. The US government determined that these policies constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. The USA, Canada and Netherlands accused China of committing genocide ( "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".defined by international convention). China has been accused of allegedly detaining up to a million Muslim Uyghurs against their will in the internment camps in Xinjiang province. Activists are speaking out against the Beijing Olympics throughout the world about the alleged crimes against humanity being committed by China. They are calling for athletes to cancel their participation and calling it “genocide games”. United States assured their support to the athletes in a statement by saying"The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 percent, as we cheer them on from home."[1]. The wall street journal mentioned that the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee is asking the team USA to use disposable phones (“Burners”), rather than taking their own devices to China because of the possibility of digital surveillance and malicious software while in China. The United States also is taking precautions to protect their athletes and their personal data from Chinese surveiallnce.

While only one athlete is participating in Beijing Olympics this year from India, India also announced a diplomatic boycott from the games. This came after the inclusion of a Chinese soldier who fought in the Galwan valley, as one of the torchbearers of the games. The foreign ministry of India said that "We have seen the reports on this issue. It is indeed regrettable that the Chinese side has chosen to politicise an event like the Olympics," and they added, "I wish to inform that our Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of India in Beijing will not be attending the opening or the closing ceremony of the Beijing '22 Winter Olympics."[2] There have been protests by Tibetians in India, calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics by India. Indian public service broadcaster Doordarshan is also not going to telecast the live session of the opening and closing ceremony.  The International Tibet Network challenged athletes to consider whether the medal holds more value than human life in a letter. The letter also talked about millions of Uyghurs detained in the concentration camps facing torture, rape, forced sterilization, and even death the letter reads.

Approximately 12 Million Uyghurs are living in Xinjiang (the largest region in the country, lies in the north-west part of the country), most of them are Muslims. The Uyghur’s make up almost half of the population in Xinjiang, there was an increase in the migration of Ethnic Chinese (Han Chinese) into the Xinjiang region.This mass migration has been alleged as state-orchestrated migration to dilute the minorities in the region.“An alliance of 243 human rights organizations and nongovernment organizations have called for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games,”[3] The Human rights activists representing the minority Uyghur and Tibetan populations appealed to the athletes and international attendants to voice their opposition to China’s human rights violations and hosting of the games at a press conference organized by the Human rights watch. About a fifth of world cotton produce comes from the Xinjiang region, a lot of reputed brands excluded cotton imports from the region due to accusations of forced labour of Uyghurs in picking the crop.

Lain Duncan Smith the representative of Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and Member of British Parliament said that "The Chinese government commits industrial-scale human rights abuses in the Uyghur Region, Tibet and sends near-daily military incursions into Taiwan's airspace.” And “We cannot lend any legitimacy to China's despotic regime.”[4]Japan also decided not to send any ministers to the games, but they didn’t announce any “Diplomatic Boycott”, any move like that might lead to heightening the tensions between the neighbours. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is the only leader who accepted China’s invitation to attend the games in Beijing. This shows the growing strength of the ties between Russia and China, the leaders of the two countries met recently in person, the first time after the pandemic. Main sponsors like Visa, Toyota and Coca-Cola didn’t make any comment on the issue, and the broadcasters are also in a similar position due to the growing criticism.

“Politicians calling for boycott #2022BeijingOlympics are doing so for their political interests and posturing. In fact, no one would care about whether these people come or not, and it has no impact whatsoever on the #Beijing2022 to be successfully held.”[5] Tweeted Liu Pengyu Spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. China’s officials also mentioned that they never invited any foreign delegates to the games, so it won't make any difference to them if the foreign delegation makes an appearance or not at the events of the Olympics. China is justifying their camps saying that they are necessary to prevent Islamist extremism, terrorism and these camps are efficient tools to reeducate the extremist inmates in its fight against terrorism. China dismissed all the allegations of sterilization and forced labour as “baseless” and “completely fabricated”.

China's Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the countries "clearly violated the Olympic spirit", and "will pay a price for its erroneous actions". But didn’t mention what that price is. With a lot of controversies and resistance from most parts of the world the 2022 Beijing winter Olympics are started on February 4^th, Chinese authorities have warned athletes not to speak against the country's law the IOC International Olympic Committee didn’t offer any guaranteed protection against it. China placed many local activists under house arrest. There were some concerns about Human rights when the Olympics were held in China in the 2008 Summer, but with the economic, military and political clout grown in these years, the Xi Jinping led China seems to be worried very less about the scrutiny from all around the world. And the covid-19 pandemic has given more leeway to them to employ restrictions as they please. China has been taking risky decisions with its foreign policy. China is facing severe clashes with most of the countries regarding political ideology. China is not following much restraint in its foreign policy after Xi Jinping became president a decade ago. Tensions have been high between the nations due to China’s new hypersonic nuclear capabilities and the Taiwan issue, The spotlight over the human rights violation due to the games took these relations into a nosedive.

Notes

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-nations-holding-diplomatic-boycott-beijing-games/story?id=82461768#:~:text=Nations%20are%20protesting%20the%20government's%20human%20rights%20violations.&text=The%20White%20House%20cited%20China's,in%20China%20early%20next%20year.

[2] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-says-its-top-diplomat-in-beijing-wont-attend-winter-olympics-after-china-uses-galwan-soldier-as-torchbearer-2747047

[3] https://www.dw.com/en/beijing-olympics-rights-groups-call-for-diplomatic-boycott/a-60585263

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-59644043

[5] https://twitter.com/SpoxCHNinUS/status/1467929864867045384

Pic Courtsey-Ling Tang at unsplash.com

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)