Australia, Britain and the US will pay a price for their “mistaken acts” after deciding not to send government delegations to February’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, China’s foreign ministry has said. The US was the first to announce a boycott, saying on Monday its government officials would not attend the February Games because of China’s human rights “atrocities”, weeks after talks aimed at easing tension between the world’s two largest economies. “The United States, Britain and Australia have used the Olympics platform for political manipulation,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson…
Tag: Winter Olympics
China attacks US diplomatic boycott of Winter Games as ‘travesty’ of Olympic spirit
China has reacted angrily to the US government’s diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics, as more countries said they would consider joining the protest over Beijing’s human rights record and New Zealand announced it would not send representatives to the Games. Chinese officials dismissed Washington’s boycott as a “posturing and political manipulation” and tried to discredit the decision by claiming that US diplomats had not even been invited to Beijing in the first place. The White House confirmed on Monday that it would not send any official or diplomatic…
West weighs up costs of boycotting China’s Winter Olympics
Boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics in February may seem a simple, symbolic diplomatic gesture – when put alongside the allegations of labour camps in Xinjiang province and the apparent sexual exploitation of the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai – but such is the contemporary economic power of China that the step will only be taken after much agonising. The threats and economic boycotts that Australia, Canada and more recently Lithuania have suffered at the hands of the Chinese for challenging Beijing’s authority in one way or another are not experiences…
Winter Olympics top sponsors ‘silent’ over China’s human rights record
Corporate sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have been accused of “squandering the opportunity” to pressure China to address its “appalling human rights record”. The Games’ top level sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Procter & Gamble, Intel and Visa, were on Friday accused of ignoring China’s alleged “crimes against humanity against Uyghurs” and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as well the repression of free speech in Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch (HWR), the New York-based campaign group, said it had written to all 13 of the Olympics top corporate partners…
Beijing Winter Olympics committee denies blocking foreign media
Beijing’s Winter Olympics organising committee has rejected accusations that journalists have been blocked in their attempts to cover preparations for the Games. Earlier this month the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) accused the Chinese authorities of “continuously stymying” attempts by foreign media to cover the Winter Olympics due to begin near the Chinese capital in February. In a scathing statement, the FCCC alleged a pattern of authorities denying or ignoring requests for access, and following, harassing and abusing journalists. It contained several accounts of specific instances from foreign journalists,…
Mounting concern over environmental cost of fake snow for Olympics
The mountains that will be the setting of the Alpine events for the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing boast spectacular scenery and breathtaking runs, but lack just one vital ingredient: real snow. Between January and March this year, the National Alpine Ski Centre in Yanqing, about 55 miles north-west of Beijing, had just 2cm of snow. London, Paris and Madrid all recorded greater snowfalls, according to data compiled by the website worldweatheronline.com. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) now faces mounting questions about the environmental cost of the Games, which open…