US lawmakers ramp up the pressure for a Beijing Olympics boycott

Name: Pelosi calls for US diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights abuses
Uploaded: 2021-05-19T05:00:14.000Z
Duration: 41 s
Description: Pelosi calls for US diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights abuses

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adds her voice to growing calls for a diplomatic ban over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang

Biden administration has so far refused to be drawn on the issue but its hand could soon be forced by new legislation

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Groups alleging human rights abuses in China are calling for a full boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Photo: AP

Owen Churchill

Published: 1:00pm, 19 May 2021Updated: 11:00pm, 19 May 2021

Pressure on the Biden administration to shun the Beijing-hosted Winter Olympics mounted on Tuesday as lawmakers and activists rallied behind boycott measures and calls on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to seek an alternative host city, in protest against the Chinese government’s human rights record.

Appearing at a congressional hearing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined a growing body of lawmakers calling on the White House to implement a diplomatic boycott of the Games, citing alleged human rights abuses such as the Chinese government’s treatment of ethnic minority groups in the country’s far west.

The Biden administration, along with other governments and legislatures around the world, has declared China’s actions in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region a genocide, yet has demurred on a possible boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

“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?” Pelosi said at a hearing jointly convened by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).

Pelosi’s endorsement of a diplomatic boycott gave extra heft to one of a number of proposals that critics of the Chinese government have floated as possible responses to Beijing’s hosting of the Games, including full-blown boycotts where athletes do not attend, corporate boycotts, and pressuring the IOC to transfer the Games to another city.

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Pelosi calls for US diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights abuses

On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing strongly opposed efforts to boycott the Games.