Missing Athlete, Genocide Do Nothing to Move Biden Towards Olympics Boycott
The case of the missing Chinese tennis star only highlights how oppressive China is, yet Joe Biden is still treading very lightly with his response to the genocide Olympics in Beijing next year.
Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai took to social media this month and accused China’s Vice Premiere Zhang Gaoli of raping her in 2019. Shuai’s social media account was then abruptly shut down by government officials, and a suspicious message in which she supposedly recanted her accusation and then assured everyone that all is well was released by officials in Beijing. Few believe the message actually came from the player who has been out of the public eye since her state-controlled social media account was so suddenly shuttered.
The case of Peng Shuai has alarmed the entire tennis community, and the Women’s Tennis Association has also called for a full investigation into Shuai’s whereabouts and safety.
The alarming incident brought Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton to again highlight the oppressive Chinese government. On Thursday, Cotton tweeted, “If the Chinese Communists disappear their own athletes, just think how much less they’ll care for the safety of ours during the Olympics,” Cotton warned.
If the Chinese Communists disappear their own athletes, just think how much less they’ll care for the safety of ours during the Olympics. #WhereIsPengShuai https://t.co/tE4bHd2Yjw
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 18, 2021
Recently, the international organization Human Rights Watch released a statement demanding that sponsors of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics explain how their participation in the event – held in a country currently committing genocide – does not involve or enable gross human rights atrocities.
Human Rights Watch wants the International Olympic Committee, along with the various media outlets and corporations, to explain how they are working to pressure China to end its genocidal campaign against the Uyghur people of East Turkestan, the occupied region China refers to as Xinjiang. The group also wants to know how these international entities are working to force China to shut down its forced labor camps, and end its policy of torture, forced sterilization, and enslavement of this minority population.
“The International Olympic Committee’s major corporate sponsors should explain publicly how they are using their leverage to address human rights abuses in China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games,” Human Rights Watch said last week. “Sponsors should also press the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to adopt a human rights policy to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for any adverse human rights impacts across all Olympic operations and events, including for the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration seems poised to make an extremely weak statement about the games in Beijing that many are beginning to call the “genocide Olympics” because of China’s horrendous record on human rights.
The Biden administration has been urged to impose a full boycott on China over its genocidal treatment of its minority populations, but instead of a meaningful policy in response to China’s mountains of human rights abuses, Biden is only considering a “diplomatic boycott” of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
The “middle of the road” response would entail the cancelation of any official U.S. delegation to observe the games but would otherwise allow all U.S. athletes and media to attend without any restrictions. In other words, Biden is giving his seal of approval to let the games go on as planned.
Yet, Biden’s own administration has termed China’s treatment of its Uyghur population a “genocide,” reaffirming the determination made by the Trump administration. And, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also said China was perpetrating a “genocide” against the Uyghurs. Still, Biden seems to be making no move toward a more meaningful policy to address the genocide Olympics.
It is shocking, indeed, that the Women’s Tennis Association is taking a harder line against the genocidal Chinese government than the president of the United States of America.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.
