China counters boycott with claim US wasn't even invited to Olympics anyway
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Chinese officials confronted with President Joe Biden's decision to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are managing the snub by insisting that the Americans were "not even being invited" to the Games.
"According to Olympic rules, officials are invited by their respective National Olympic Committee to attend the Olympic Games," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian maintained Tuesday. "Despite not even being invited, the U.S. side linked its officials' attendance with the so-called human rights issues in Xinjiang, going down the wrong path further by distorting facts while cheating themselves, as well as others."
That statement punctuated a line of commentary from outside the foreign ministry to the effect that Chinese Communist officials decided they had little interest in hosting a well-attended international event. Yet Chinese Communist officials have expressed outrage at any high-profile finding that Beijing has imposed a policy of genocide against Uyghur Muslims, particularly as that criticism spurred opposition to the Beijing Olympics.
"The Chinese government's systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom and other human rights of Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and many others betray the Olympic spirit," U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Vice Chairman Nury Turkel said Monday. "In fact, a genocidal regime should not have been granted the privilege to host the Olympics in the first place."
Chinese officials have tried to deflect such criticism by projecting an aura of reputational invincibility, even in the face of rebukes such as the ones delivered by lawmakers in the EU Parliament and the British Parliament.
"I would like to reiterate that China firmly opposes the politicization of sports and the interference in other countries' internal affairs by using human rights issues as a pretext," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in July in response to European and British calls for a boycott of the Olympics. "All sectors of the international community, including the governments and Olympic committees of many countries, and the International Olympic Committee, have all expressed their clear opposition to such practice that is doomed to fail."
Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the games, an invitation he accepted last month in defiance of widespread fear about the well-being of a Chinese tennis star who accused a retired senior Chinese Communist official of sexual assault. Yet analysts in Beijing amplified the foreign ministry's newly stated disinterest in attendance by political leaders.
"China does not view the 2022 Winter Games as a chance to display its power or its capacity to host a successful Olympics — it already did so last time," Tsinghua University's Zhao Kejin told the South China Morning Post. "Thus the presence of an array of foreign leaders is not something that China is really concerned with diplomatically."
Biden's boycott could be the first of many, as the European Parliament already has voted that senior European politicians should refuse to attend the games in solidarity with the oppressed Uyghurs.
"I also call on other allies and partners that share our values to join with the United States in this diplomatic boycott," Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said Monday. "As the CCP continues with its mass internments, family separations, forced labor, forced renunciations of faith, and forced sterilizations, the world must be united in confronting the staggering enormity of Beijing's egregious human rights violations and hold those who perpetuate these atrocities to account."
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Agreed, and China's response that the USA wasn't invited is just plain stupid.
Reminds one of the Jesse Owens story when Germany tried to block his admission and then promised that any true German off the street could beat Owens at any sort.
IRONIC.
Anoon..we weren't invited either so could not work out what was all the outrage about then??
NZ aren't sending diplomats either, but that is due to concerns about catching the virus..so they say...
The comments from China were who cares and we will pay, just wait and see. Yep whatever..but please don't lift the ban on crayfish...we have got cheap Cray's for Christmas again..
As I said who wants to pay for a bunch of free loading officials and diplomats that don't contribute anything anyway and take up space...A cost saving for us and China..I am all for it...
I'm with you!
As long as they leave the athletes alone, who cares about a bunch of politicians?
I have always felt sorry for any athletes from any country that didn't participate for any reasons. They worked so hard training for the Olympics and then to deny them is a huge slap in the face.
Is there much that politics can't screw up royally?
Evening Texan...
Exactly right... leave the athletes alone to do their thing and all the free loaders can rack off...why in the hell are they there in the first place??
Never realised that lot of over stuffed and over privileged free loaders even attended the Olympics...and it is simply not necessary.
That is for sure!
IMO, the world could use more athletes and fewer politicians.
Yet another China-bashing article from the extreme right-wing Washington Examiner, still hypnotized by Adrian Zenz. I think that to provide political balance to NT I'll start posting articles from Crooks&Liars.
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Yep, nothing like another expose' of extreme left wing hate offered up to counter the truth...
Exactly. You are both exactly right on your response
Dude, fuck the Chinese government.
On this we are in rare agreement!
If the United States was not invited to the Beijing Winter Olympics then why would the Chinese government even need to address the diplomatic boycott? And how does the diplomatic boycott politicize athletics since US athletes are still going to participate?
Chinese diplomats are making a big deal about something they claim to care nothing about. Who forced China to host the Winter Olympics? And if the Chinese government doesn't care then why are the Winter Olympics being held in Beijing? It seems the Winter Olympics should be held in countries that want the games.
Deep thoughts ...... by Nerm_L
China did, China was "Chosen" cause the four nations that applied and were chosen before them withdrew their proposals when notified of their selection and the requirements of it by the IOC... The Chinese forced themselves... Or there isn't an international nationalist spectacle they don't love...
Anything olympics at this point means nothing with all the nationalistic posturing by the media surrounding it, I mean the most anticipated announcement of each day of the Olympics is the current medal count, which nation has won more than the others.. as if that makes one nation better than the others...
I could care less for the Olympics, the competition is nice, but not wrapped in the flags of the nations... Especially the one hosting it... Overall viewership has been declining over the last few olympics anyways, so I would say the nationalistic presentations are really putting a damper on what they mean, if they meant anything at all in the first place..
Bread and circuses.
That's not a joke, because it works.
Lol sure, and the Lakers weren't "invited" to play in the NBA this year. Fuck off China.
What happened to the serious consequences? Now, they don't give a pooh?
Posturing and politics by the CCP so they can thumb their collective noses up at the West. It has ceased being about athletic prowess.
In response to most of the comments on this seed.....
Over what?
Good question!