Beijing 2022: Calls for Winter Olympics boycott doomed to failure, government spokesman says
- Guo Weimin says some foreign politicians are trying to politicise sport and sabotage Beijing’s preparations for the Winter Olympics in February
- Canada, United States and the Netherlands have criticised China over their treatment of Uygur Muslims and other minorities in China
Calls for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on human rights grounds are “doomed to failure”, a Chinese government spokesperson said, as lawmakers and political advisers began converging on China’s capital for the biggest annual gathering of the political calendar.
The statement was made by Guo Weimin, the spokesperson for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the official advisory body to China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress.
Both bodies hold their annual meetings this week amid tight security and social distancing measures to guard against increasingly narrow odds of passing on the coronavirus. Local transmission of Covid-19 has been practically wiped out in China, where the first cases were detected in the central city of Wuhan late in 2019.
Beijing is the only city ever to have been given the right to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, further burnishing the ruling Communist Party’s credentials for driving economic growth and organisational expertise.
However, a small but vocal core of international lawyers, politicians and activists have brought pressure on Olympic sponsors, sports federations, governments and athletes to shun what they are branding as the “Genocide Games” because of reported human rights abuses against Muslim Uygurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China.
Guo said the drive against Beijing 2022 would amount to nothing. “Some individual foreign politicians politicised sports with an attempt to disturb and sabotage the preparations and holding of the Beijing Winter Olympics and called for a boycott,” Guo told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
“These acts are in violation of the Olympic spirit. We believe that the moves will not win support from the international community and are doomed to failure,” he said.
The ruling Communist Party has relentlessly cracked down on political opponents and perceived social threats since the 2008 Beijing Summer Games that were supposed to improve human rights in China. Beijing won the 2022 Winter Olympics after several European bidders withdrew over costs and public opposition, leaving Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the only other bidder.
