For nearly a year, I’ve been writing, writing, and writing that the United States — and really, the world — has no business honoring Communist China with 16 days of unearned propaganda at the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
While my full boycott pleas will not come true, these “Genocide Games” appear set for disaster.
A few weeks ago, a third massive Chinese city locked down its residents because of a COVID-19 outbreak. Combine that with the two prior locales, and you have about 20 million people — the size of Florida — shut in by authoritarians.
Dictators adore the Olympic spectacle. On the verge of the most consequential European military invasion since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping for Friday’s opening ceremonies.
Why did the corrupt International Olympic Committee (IOC) choose an odious regime — that just hosted the global event in 2008 — which may be using slave labor to make official Olympic merchandise?
The IOC took a strong moral stand when it came to Apartheid in South Africa but silent on genocide in China. Why? Money. https://t.co/jwJOzQd75h
— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) February 2, 2022
No fans will attend, and television ratings will be disastrous, so long as Americans do not allow Beijing tyrants and the IOC to act like everything is normal. It is not.
Over the last two years, China has erected slave labor camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang province; suppressed speech in Hong Kong; censored non-state media; jailed critics; kidnapped female athletes; moved aggressively into Afghanistan; strengthened forces against Hong Kong and Taiwan; and oh yeah, unleashed a global virus that’s killed nearly 6 million people.
Their power makes China not only our chief adversary, but also an illiberal threat we cannot ignore.
New data on US views toward China https://t.co/PExdceOy0f Conservative Republicans especially likely to say China is an enemy. Very few from either party say China is a partner. pic.twitter.com/uXMWji41Fb
— Richard Wike (@RichardWike) January 31, 2022
As to the Olympic broadcast itself, don’t rely on feckless media for moral leadership. They want to assuage dictator Xi and get viewers so swept up in the pageantry that we ignore that the pernicious government hosting the games has millions in concentration camps and forcibly sterilizes ethnic minority groups.
NBC won’t even have announcers on site to mention China’s noxious human-rights abuses during its coverage. Corporations sponsoring this sham are cowards who enable evil, simply so they can access the Chinese market.
“By both action and inaction, they are helping the Chinese government cover up its repression, mainly because it is in their financial interest,” American Foreign Policy Council’s Michael Sobolik recently told The Washington Post.
I won’t watch a second. Should you? It’s a personal choice. The answer is clear if you want real change, not the faux activism of a wealthy social justice cabal.
And to our 222 athletes — including more than 20 Minnesotans — who decided to head over to a surveilled country for an extended stay during a global pandemic, stay safe.
“President Biden’s diplomatic boycott means nothing to a regime that’s imprisoning activists and committing genocide without consequences,” Nikki Haley recently reminded the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our athletes are at risk, and yet we’ve heard nothing from the administration on what they plan to do to protect them.”
Ignoring the Beijing spectacle is about denying a showcase of China’s superpower status to the world, and pressuring IOC members who spit on human rights while Beijing pampers them. We should always remain the moral counterweight to modern totalitarianism, even when our selfish elites won’t.
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.
