(TargetLiberty.org) – The Chinese Communist Party is throwing its weight around again, this time over the 2022 Olympics. The Communist state is hosting the games, and it doesn’t want its propaganda coup to be messed up by inconvenient protests about the regime’s appalling human rights record.
The West Australian reported that a coalition of over 180 human rights groups, supported by US members of Congress and British parliamentarians, is demanding that the International Olympic Committee change the venue of the games in protest over China’s repression of the Uyghur minority. The IOC has indicated that it has no plans to make this happen, but some of the lawmakers are also urging US and British athletes to boycott the event.
Boycotting 2022 Beijing Winter Games, an unpopular idea, won’t receive wide support. IOC and athletes will both oppose it, and China will seriously sanction any country that follows such a call. pic.twitter.com/3cOSb2wMdS
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) February 7, 2021
Now Beijing has hit back, threatening to “seriously sanction” any country that boycotts the games. The menacing statement came from the editor of a state-controlled newspaper, the Global Times, a paper that is a Communist mouthpiece.
The Biden administration is already showing its true colors by indicating that the US won’t mount an official boycott; the question is how many athletes will put principles over glory, and refuse to take part in China’s image-boosting.
Copyright 2020, TargetLiberty.org
