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.
Thursday’s amendment reflected Romney’s assessment of the omnibus bill’s chances of making it “across the finish line” in time for the Olympics, which begin in February, said Anna Ashton, vice-president of government affairs at the US-China Business Council.
“Adding this to the NDAA does make it very likely that it will be included in whatever is the final package there and that it will become law,” Ashton said. “I don’t see the political will, by any large group of members of Congress, to push back against it.”
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The amendment’s fate now falls on whether Senate Armed Services Committee leaders are willing to add it to what is known as a “manager’s package”, a collection of late-stage, generally non-controversial amendments that are brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
The office of Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and chairman of the committee, did not respond to a request for comment.
Beijing’s selection as host for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games has been met with criticism from lawmakers and rights groups, who argue that the Games grant legitimacy to a government that is accused of human rights abuses.
The Biden administration, along with legislatures in Britain and Canada, has made an official determination that China’s treatment of Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in the country’s far-west constitutes “genocide”.
“A diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics will demonstrate our repudiation of China’s ongoing human rights abuses – including genocide against the Uygurs – in a way that will hurt the Chinese Communist Party, rather than punish our American athletes,” Romney said in a statement.
“We must come together with our allies and the free nations of the world if we are going to be successful in our effort to counter China,” said Romney, whose political ascent began soon after his successful leadership of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Beijing denies allegations of human rights abuses and has criticised what it considers attempts to politicise the Olympics.
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An earlier effort to add a corporate boycott to the defence bill, whereby companies who sponsor the Games would be prohibited from selling products on US military bases, failed to move past the committee stage in the House of Representatives because of opposition from Democrats.
But a diplomatic boycott is likely to face an easier path, given that a number of powerful Democrats have voiced explicit support for such a measure.
“For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing while you’re sitting there in your seat really begs the question: what moral authority do you have to speak about human rights any place in the world?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in May.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. But when asked about the Winter Olympics, the Biden administration has declined to take a position. As recently as August, it was too soon to “wade in” on the matter, said US State Department spokesman Ned Price.
But the administration has been consulting allies on the issue, according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, who told reporters in August that she hoped for a “decision soon”.
“They’re going to have trouble navigating a decision not to take some sort of stand,” Ashton said.
Additional reporting by Jacob Fromer
