Responding to a column of mine from last month, a friend asked what purpose was served behind my suggestion of boycotting the 2022 Beijing Olympics. I maintained it’s not for show but, when world celebrations continually are held in places like China, Qatar and Russia, about preventing future global events from benefiting rogue regimes.
As President Joe Biden audaciously cheers on boycotts of American states, he has less interest in totalitarian China hosting the Winter Olympics or the southern border crisis. Lest he or we forget, China caused a global pandemic and currently is committing genocide on a minority group.
I’ve heard former Trump administration officials like Larry Kudlow muse that Biden was finally getting tough on China. A State Department spokesman even said an Olympic boycott was something they wanted to discuss with allies.
But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki ended hope of any moral courage earlier this month, saying the administration “has not discussed and are not discussing any joint boycott with allies and partners.”
We shouldn’t be surprised at this weakness. After all, the first official visit to China by a Biden administration official was the vainglorious John Kerry pointlessly jetting there last week to talk about weather patterns.
ESPN, which celebrates athletes bashing the United States and adores the Communist regime, gleefully reported a Beijing spokesperson warning against human rights groups protesting, claiming, “The politicization of sports will damage the spirit of the Olympic Charter and the interests of athletes from all countries. The international community including the U.S. Olympic Committee will not accept it.”
Imagine China’s reaction to odious cowards like LeBron James and Megan Rapinoe bashing their country, as they do America.
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee — like most global organizations, they’ve never found tyranny they couldn’t ignore — continues to ignore human rights and be subservient to China.
Recently it was reported the IOC gave a uniform contract for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Beijing Games to a Chinese company that uses cotton from Xinjiang. But rest assured, the IOC insists the company promises that it will fill this contract without using forced Uyghur labor. Sure.
Boycotting these Olympics is mainly about denying China another global propaganda opportunity. It is also about changing the behavior of the wealthy IOC members who spit on the idea of human rights as China pampers them. So they defend ChiComs, while continuing to force Taiwan to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei.” The corrupt IOC even threatened to ban Taiwan from future games if it didn’t adhere to the IOC’s (and China’s) demands.
China is strong. China is not a “developing country.” It has always had the world’s largest population and, after shedding parts of the communist economic model, the fastest growing and polluting economy on earth.
Thus it’s sadly expected that amoral entities such as the IOC, WHO, Apple, Google, Nike, the NBA, Olympic athletes, Canadian prime ministers, and others will ignore or enable evil to make a buck. While we have brave politicians here who won’t blink, the U.S. government should be the main moral counterbalance to modern totalitarians.
Be it Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or today, the free world should not lend legitimacy to genocidal regimes; doing so encourages the IOC and others to continue awarding marquee events and publicity wins to the worst regimes on earth.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
