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BumRushDaShow

(128,958 posts)
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 02:25 PM Dec 2021

No U.S. official will attend Beijing Winter Olympics, White House announces

Source: Washington Post

The United States will not send President Biden or any U.S. government official to the Beijing Winter Olympics in February in a signal of displeasure over China’s human rights abuses, the White House announced Monday. The diplomatic boycott allows American athletes to participate in the Games, but is a significant political snub of Washington’s greatest military and economic competitor.

Pressure to mount such a boycott has been building for months, with lawmakers from both parties and human rights advocates calling on the Biden administration not to attend in response to Beijing’s repressive policies against democracy activists in Hong Kong and Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Biden told reporters last month he was weighing a diplomatic boycott.

The decision stands in contrast to 1980, when President Jimmy Carter kept U.S. officials and athletes out of the Summer Games in Moscow in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Though more than 60 countries joined the boycott in 1980, hundreds of American athletes were deprived of their chance at Olympic glory. The U.S. government cannot unilaterally bar athletes from the Olympics or declare a boycott. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, an independent nonprofit organization, has sole authority to make the final call.

“I want to stress that the Winter Olympic Games is not a stage for political posturing and manipulation,” said Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, on Monday, responding to reports a boycott announcement was imminent. “U.S. politicians keep hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ without even being invited to the Games. This wishful thinking and pure grandstanding is aimed at political manipulation. It is a grave travesty of the spirit of the Olympic Charter, a blatant political provocation and a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people.”?

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-beijing-winter-olympics-diplomatic-boycott/2021/12/06/1d2e9920-56b1-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html

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No U.S. official will attend Beijing Winter Olympics, White House announces (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Dec 2021 OP
Chinese politicians always sound so stupid to the rest of the world, HUAJIAO Dec 2021 #1
+1. 'Blatant provocation' is what Beijing does on a regular basis. dalton99a Dec 2021 #5
Damn right. ancianita Dec 2021 #15
You have Sichuan peppercorns as your username IronLionZion Dec 2021 #6
HA HA You caught it.. Not many do ttzzzzzzzz.. HUAJIAO Dec 2021 #10
Oh yeah, I like the Chengdu panda breeding center IronLionZion Dec 2021 #13
If you do any Sichuan cooking, or any Chinese cooking for that matter, HUAJIAO Dec 2021 #17
America doesn't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to speaking out on human rights abuses DSandra Dec 2021 #2
America has both a right and duty to speak out against concentration camps for ethnic minorities. cinematicdiversions Dec 2021 #4
But America doesn't have the moral backing in reality DSandra Dec 2021 #7
They do on this and it doesn't matter a whit what "rogue countries" think of it. NYC Liberal Dec 2021 #9
America has a pretty poor record on human rights... pecosbob Dec 2021 #11
Nope, but it's also about more than that -- China's provocations & confrontations in ancianita Dec 2021 #16
Good. dalton99a Dec 2021 #3
Petulant, jingoistic, hardline, MIC inspired, aggressive political theater. Magoo48 Dec 2021 #8
When this was done against the U.S.S.R under Carter in 1980 BumRushDaShow Dec 2021 #14
I don't think the Olympics should be politicized iemanja Dec 2021 #19
I agree BumRushDaShow Dec 2021 #20
Let's ask Peng Shuai...oh, wait, we can't. pecosbob Dec 2021 #12
Good. Now maybe we can discuss our racism and genocide? I'm past ready. Evolve Dammit Dec 2021 #18

HUAJIAO

(2,385 posts)
1. Chinese politicians always sound so stupid to the rest of the world,
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 02:49 PM
Dec 2021

(Of course, they are dangerous. That's a given)

But they speak to the outside world with the same not-so-subtle condescending, threatening, propagandistic language they use on their own people. It's all they know. Totally inhuman monsters. Sound familiar?

Now, I love Chinese culture and especially FOOD.. and was married to a Chinese woman, been to China many times... but...

IronLionZion

(45,440 posts)
13. Oh yeah, I like the Chengdu panda breeding center
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 04:41 PM
Dec 2021

they seem to have cracked the code on how to get more pandas.

HUAJIAO

(2,385 posts)
17. If you do any Sichuan cooking, or any Chinese cooking for that matter,
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 05:24 PM
Dec 2021

I know the BESTEST ingredient supply place- www.themalamarket.com
A mom and daughter who travel to Sichuan frequently and have great contacts there.

They are also in Facebook.

DSandra

(999 posts)
2. America doesn't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to speaking out on human rights abuses
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 03:09 PM
Dec 2021

Treatment of Native Americans, Blacks, the homeless, and mentally ill people, need I say more?

 

cinematicdiversions

(1,969 posts)
4. America has both a right and duty to speak out against concentration camps for ethnic minorities.
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 03:51 PM
Dec 2021

To suggest otherwise is mind blowing.

DSandra

(999 posts)
7. But America doesn't have the moral backing in reality
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 04:03 PM
Dec 2021

Officials in more rogue countries roll their eyes knowing that America is really doing it just for show, and pretend in being an exceptional nation to its citizens.

pecosbob

(7,538 posts)
11. America has a pretty poor record on human rights...
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 04:35 PM
Dec 2021

but we can't even hold the CCP's beer when talking about a government shitting on it's own citizens.

ancianita

(36,055 posts)
16. Nope, but it's also about more than that -- China's provocations & confrontations in
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 05:21 PM
Dec 2021

oceanic shipping lanes that the U.S. Navy has kept clear for 100 years. Also about its incursions into Taiwan's airspace to menace our ally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Navy#Territorial_dispute

Though we appear to China as the new kid on the planetary block who disses older nations and cultures (by millennia), it's also about our commander-in-chief standing up for our Navy that rules the oceans of the planet, and without it the world's transoceanic shipping trade wouldn't have become as stable as it has.
Biden and the administration wouldn't make this a one-issue decision.





Magoo48

(4,709 posts)
8. Petulant, jingoistic, hardline, MIC inspired, aggressive political theater.
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 04:21 PM
Dec 2021

This shit isn’t good for anyone, anywhere. With real problems facing humanity, instead taking a stance which encourages multilateralism and cooperation, our foreign affairs people, obviously influenced by the arms industry, trots out the Edsel of international diplomacy.

Brilliant.

BumRushDaShow

(128,958 posts)
14. When this was done against the U.S.S.R under Carter in 1980
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 04:46 PM
Dec 2021

The entire Olympic team was kept from participation.

In this case, it's only the political figures not attending but the U.S. Olympic team will compete.

iemanja

(53,032 posts)
19. I don't think the Olympics should be politicized
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 09:53 PM
Dec 2021

and I didn't care for Carter's move. At least the athletes will be able to go to this Olympics. They work their entire lives to get there.

BumRushDaShow

(128,958 posts)
20. I agree
Mon Dec 6, 2021, 10:06 PM
Dec 2021

although as long as the Olympics is permitted to rotate to different countries outside of its origin country of Greece (as the "modern" form has), it will ultimately be politicized by someone. Note the 1936 one -

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