Beijing Winter Olympics: US senators try to force Joe Biden’s hand on diplomatic boycott
- An amendment to the must-pass military spending bill calls for barring federal money from being used for officials to attend the Games, which start in February
- The move ‘repudiates China’s human rights abuses in a way that will hurt the Chinese Communist Party rather than punish American athletes’, says Mitt Romney
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now seeking to force the issue, introducing a diplomatic boycott measure to be added on to the defence budget bill – legislation that Congress has passed without fail every year for the past six decades.
Announced on Thursday, the measure would prohibit the US State Department from spending any federal funds to support officials’ attendance at the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to a copy of the amendment seen by the South China Morning Post.
First reported by Reuters, the amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) was led by Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was joined by fellow Republican Todd Young of Indiana and Democratic Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
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Pelosi calls for US diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights abuses
The effort comes as the Senate’s omnibus China bill, which contained a similar boycott measure, faces an uphill battle in a Congress preoccupied with Biden’s two spending bills. The China bill, the US Innovation and Competition Act, passed the Senate in June, but the House of Representatives has yet to pass a companion version.