'Boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022'
US politicians tied to big business push to have US athletes go. It is more effective for the Chinese to use money to corrupt universal values than to threaten an adversary with nuclear weapons. For the Biden administration, the boycott would be a first foreign policy success.
Washington (AsiaNews) – An international call to boycott next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics is growing. Humanitarian groups and politicians justify the boycott by pointing to China’s suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet. AsiaNews is publishing here some thoughts by Wei Jingsheng, “father of democracy” in China, now exiled to the United States.
Less than a year away from the Beijing Winter Olympics, more and more politicians and humanitarian groups in many countries are calling for a boycott of the event. Others instead oppose the call.
A well-known US politician has said, for example, that athletes are working hard and that their families are looking forward to the event; it would not be right to ask them to make such a sacrifice. He noted that the global campaign to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics did not change the human rights situation in China.
This is the same debate that took place 20 years ago when the United States granted China most-favoured nation status (in trade). The interests of some people in the US cannot therefore be sacrificed for the sake of human rights in China.
Due to manipulation by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and big business in the US, and with so much money and interests at stake, the US Congress passed a resolution that was harmful to the Chinese and American peoples.
As is often the case, politicians in Washington have resorted to specious excuses for their own personal gain. According to the politician mentioned at the beginning, it seems that the 2022 Winter Olympics is the only opportunity for US athletes.
The excuse of losing an Olympic gold medal, which would damage the popularity of athletes and therefore their sporting career, seems like sophistry.
If professional competitions take place in the United States and Europe at the same time as the Olympic Games, and are broadcast on national television, the popularity of the athletes will not be lost, and the lack of moral credit of the Beijing Olympics will be highlighted.
China’s communist regime and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will lose credibility. In the meantime, the authority and moral credibility of the sports federations of other countries will grow; the athletes themselves will not lose much.
The other losers will be the trade groups that flatter the Communist regime and the shameless politicians who sponsor Beijing. These sponsors are used to selling their products and taking money secretly while ignoring the suffering of ordinary people.
The IOC is now a corrupt organisation, whose humanitarian claim has long since faded. The scandals in the world of international sport are endless. Western democracies have also learnt from the Communist Party of China's “money diplomacy”, and are guilty of corruption by violating their own laws.
Deng Xiaoping was smarter than Mao Zedong and Soviet leaders because he had grasped the weakness of Western capitalism. It is more effective to use money to corrupt universal values than to threaten an adversary with nuclear weapons.
Western democracy is based on a free market economy. But the weakness of this system is that money controls politics. When the interests of certain capitalists outweigh fundamental values, it is not only values that are sacrificed, but also economic and security interests.
The Biden administration has firmly stated that it will base its foreign policy on respect for universal values. For now, we have not yet seen the practical implementation of this commitment. Great things have to be done, but they are often more difficult to achieve and will not be effective until after a long time.
We might as well start with smaller and easier actions, which can give quick results, like in the game of “Go”, where small victories accumulate and become bigger ones. This would be an effective way to restore global democracy and fight for international leadership.
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