The Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Olympics gets underway today. But count me among those who will be jeering, not cheering.
In fact, I was in the vanguard of those who called for a conventional boycott. Notably, The New York Times published an Op-Ed on March 15, 2021 by Sen. Mitt Romney titled “The Right Way to Boycott the Beijing Olympics.” He called for a diplomatic boycott.
I commented on it back then as follows:
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Western governments have declared China’s treatment of Uighurs a genocide. Therefore, (Biden’s) targeted sanctions and (Romney’s) diplomatic boycott hardly seem sufficient to honor pledges that “never again” will Western leaders stand by while any state perpetrates genocide.
Of course, even more than Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China has just cause to believe it can act with impunity. Western companies like Google, Philips, and Siemens have seen to that.
No. The only way Western countries can regain the moral high ground in their dealings with China is to relocate the Beijing 2022 Olympics based on the same principle that moved them to boycott the Moscow 1980 Olympics. The categorical imperative for doing the former is clearly greater. Let the chips fall where they may.
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I reinforced those points here a few weeks later in a commentary titled “…Relocate (Don’t Boycott) Beijing 2022 Olympics!” April 5, 2021. Clearly I lost the argument. But now athletes are facing the untenable prospect of competing in an environment that smacks of a cross between a leper colony and an internment camp.
Not to mention that some athletes are seeing their Olympic dreams summarily dashed based on Covid tests that any reasonable person would have just cause to question. I mean, what’s to prevent Chinese officials from targeting certain athletes for positive Covid results to eliminate them from competition? This, to boost Team China’s chances of winning more gold.
Because I don’t trust them any more than I trust the Russians who used a state-sanctioned doping program to win more gold when they hosted the Sochi 2014 Olympics…
The country wants the global spotlight so it can display its remarkable rise, yet Beijing is hypersensitive to criticism of human rights abuses at home and growing friction with countries abroad.
Olympic athletes are being greeted by Chinese officials in hazmat suits conducting COVID-19 tests. The competitors will be restricted to a secure COVID bubble throughout their time in China. The FBI has urged U.S. athletes to leave their phones at home and take only a disposable burner phone to protect sensitive personal information against possible hacking.
(NPR, February 3, 2022)
How’s that for a superpower snowflake. Ha! Frankly, I hope every Western athlete seizes every opportunity to defy China’s attempt to prevent criticism. Because what better way to make a mockery of Xi’s presumption that he can have the whole world live in mortal fear of causing even a slight crack while walking on the egg shells that constitute respecting China’s increasingly Orwellian, woke culture.
That said, regular readers know of my customary practice of ignoring all other world events to comment exclusively and exhaustively on the Olympic events … every day. But, to honor my own call for a boycott of these games, this is the first time since I launched my blog in 2005 that I am not going to comment on a single event.
Related commentaries:
Podcast #boycottBeijing… Peng Shuai… Russian doping… Relocate Olympics…