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China has reacted angrily to the US authorities’s diplomatic boycott of subsequent yr’s Winter Olympics, as extra nations mentioned they’d take into account becoming a member of the protest over Beijing’s human rights document and New Zealand introduced it will not ship representatives to the Video games.
Chinese language officers dismissed Washington’s boycott as a “posturing and political manipulation” and tried to discredit the choice by claiming that US diplomats had not even been invited to Beijing within the first place.
The White Home confirmed on Monday that it will not ship any official or diplomatic representatives to the Winter Video games and Paralympics in February, “given the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] ongoing genocide and crimes in opposition to humanity in Xinjiang and different human rights abuses”.
“The athletes on Workforce USA have our full assist,” mentioned White Home press secretary Jen Psaki. “We will likely be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from dwelling. We won’t be contributing to the fanfare of the Video games.”
On Tuesday, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, Grant Robertson, confirmed the nation wouldn’t ship diplomatic representatives at a ministerial degree. Robertson cited Covid-19 as the first purpose “however we’ve made clear to China on quite a few events our issues about human rights points”, he mentioned.
The UK, Canada, and Australia have mentioned they have been contemplating their positions. Final week, Lithuania, which is going through commerce and diplomatic hostilities from China over its rising relationship with Taiwan, introduced neither its president nor ministers would attend the Video games.
Chinese language officers responded to the US announcement with outrage and in addition pre-emptive dismissal. Liu Xiaoming, the previous Chinese language ambassador to the UK, mentioned the Olympics have been “not a stage for political posturing and manipulation”.
“US politicians hold hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ with out even being invited to the Video games. This wishful considering and pure grandstanding is geared toward political manipulation,” he mentioned.
“It’s a grave travesty of the spirit of the Olympic Constitution, a blatant political provocation and a severe affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese language folks. It should solely make the Chinese language folks and the world see clearly US politicians’ anti-China nature and hypocrisy.”
Liu’s tweets mirrored the language of a number of different Chinese language officers earlier than and after the announcement.
China’s embassy in Washington dismissed the boycott as “a pretentious act” and a “political manipulation”.
Earlier on Monday, China’s international ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, accused Washington of “hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ with out even being invited to the Video games”, and threatened unspecified “resolute countermeasures” if a boycott was introduced.
A US boycott had the assist of senior legislators together with Republican Mitt Romney and the Democrat Speaker of the Home, Nancy Pelosi.
Boycott calls have intensified in latest months, as dozens of world governments mull how to reply to Beijing’s continued crackdown on ethnic minorities in China, its intervention on Hong Kong, and different human rights points. Calls for have additional escalated over the case of Chinese language tennis star Peng Shuai, who was not seen for nearly three weeks after posting to social media an accusation of sexual assault in opposition to Chinese language former vice-premier. She was later proven on state media to be in Beijing, however there stay widespread issues about her wellbeing and degree of freedom.
Rights teams welcomed the US announcement and referred to as for different governments to comply with go well with.
Mark Clifford, the president of the UK-based advocacy group Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, mentioned world leaders had been “proven the way in which” by the US.
“Work with the US and Lithuania and take up the one morally justifiable plan of action by implementing diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing – or settle for that you’re endorsing a few of the most horrific abuses inflicted upon a inhabitants by their very own authorities in trendy instances,” he mentioned.
The final time the US staged an Olympics boycott was the 1980 Moscow video games, alongside 64 different nations and territories in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the earlier yr.
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