The 24th Winter Olympics in history was held in Beijing between 4 and 20 February 2022. This Winter Olympics was held against the backdrop of a modern Chinese image marred by authoritarianism and human rights abuses. In response, shortly before the Olympics was due to begin, several countries spearheaded by the USA staged a diplomatic boycott against Beijing, calling on them to address various human rights concerns, including the ordeals suffered in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Unlike previous diplomatic boycotts, where athletes along with diplomatic officials would not attend, the recent boycotts allowed athletes to compete while the head officials of the country stayed in their home country as a sign of protest. Whether countries should join the campaign divided the world, and such boycott measures prompted angry and dismissive responses from China. Further, it stimulates wider discussions about whether such diplomatic boycotts’ impact the global cause of human rights, and whether it inevitably involves a dichotomy between human rights undertaking and Olympic spirits.
Three Camps
A total of 10 countries declared such a diplomatic boycott, among which a few explicitly cited human rights concerns. On 5 December 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the US boycott, saying that they would not contribute to Beijing’s “fanfare” due to the “human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.” On 8 December 2021, the UK, Canada, and Australia announced similar measures for human rights reasons. On 14 January 2022, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod announced the same, saying Denmark did not make their concerns with human rights situations in China a secret.
Some countries fell short of declaring a diplomatic boycott, but similarly cited Chinese human rights conditions as part of the reason of the absence of their diplomatic representation in the Winter Olympics 2022. For example, on 24 December 2021, the Japanese government declared their intention to only send Olympic officials to the Games, which they said was partly due to Chinese government’s lack of respect for basic human rights. On 14 January 2022, Netherlands announced that their foreign representatives would not attend because of Covid restrictions, which they said would make it difficult for their diplomats to raise human rights concern with China. Some other countries’ diplomats were absent at the games for other reasons including COVID-19, but it was almost certain that the human rights violations in China were a consideration for some of them.
Most countries did not take this position, however. Notably, France had been vocally against a boycott, with President Macron saying such a measure would politicise the sports and be “insignificant and symbolic”. Austria diplomats were absent for Covid reasons, but their Chancellor Karl Nehammer spoke out against an “artificial politicisation of the games”. Czech President Miloš Zeman similarly said he was “fundamentally opposed to the misuse of the Olympic idea for political purposes.” China’s staunch ally, Putin, claimed that these “demonstrative boycotts” were inconsistent with the first traditional Olympic value of “equality and justice”. He also filled the empty seats left by the absent diplomats at the opening ceremony.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
The human rights violations underlying the diplomatic boycotts are wide-ranging and long-standing. The most publicly known one is the coordinated campaign against Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. In 2018, the United Nations uncovered a mass incarceration programme, whereby at least one million Uighurs had been detained in “counter-extremism centres”, and another two million were forcibly admitted to “re-education camps” where they would be politically and culturally indoctrinated. Among them, hundreds of thousands were sentenced to prison terms. In these institutions, they are made to endure forced labour, tortured, sexually abused and in some cases killed, while women are forcibly sterilised and underwent forced abortions. Outside these concentration camps, women are subject to coercive birth prevention campaigns and forcibly fitted with intrauterine devices, and parents are separated from their children and go into enforced disappearance. Uighur people and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are subject to constant surveillance, which forced them to refrain from discussing political topics over the phone. Another central part of the campaign is to erase ethnic minority culture, religion and language through integration policies and the denunciation of their religion as superstitions. On 4 January 2022, 19 Uighurs in Turkey filed a criminal complaint against Chinese officials, denouncing the cultural genocide, torture, rape and other crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. Arguably, Xinjiang represents one of the gravest humanitarian crises in the past decades.
Another issue of grave concern is the current oppression in Hong Kong. Since the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China, China has implemented a series of policies to integrate Hong Kong into China mainland and erode the remnant democracy in Hong Kong, such as the extradition bill. After a succession of protests against such measure, China implemented the Hong Kong national security law, which further opened the door to arbitrary detention of any dissenters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The freedom of expression has become the past in Hong Kong: pro-democracy books were removed from university libraries, Pillar of Shame removed, various forms of protests banned, and independent news media forcibly shut down. This exacerbated Taiwanese counterparts’ constant fear of losing their hard-won democracy, whom the Chinese government has vowed to “take back” employing even military means.
The Han Chinese in Chinese mainland are not exempt from such cruel disregard for their fundamental rights and human dignity. The Chinese justice system has a conviction rate of 99.97%, and news of miscarriage of justice such as the tortured confession and execution of Shubin Nie continues to come to light. Thousands of people are executed in China every year, including for drug offences. Recent news of Peng Shuai and the chained mother of eight children highlight the atrocities Chinese women face. After a long post accusing a senior CCP official of rape, Chinese athlete Peng Shuai disappeared into view, and any discussion of Peng Shuai has been censored since. She was later seen attending events in videos posted by Chinese state media, called by the International Olympic Committee, and interviewed by Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao and French media L’Équipe. In any of these instances, concerned were raised about her ability to express herself freely. For example, the interview with French media was accompanied by a Chinese official. Recent news of a Xuzhou mother chained in a rural family with most her teeth gone sparked further concern about the lack of protection against women’s rights abuses by Chinese government.
The Wolf Warriors
In moves characteristic of the so-called wolf warrior diplomacy adopted by China in recent years, their diplomats have responded to these boycotts with a variety of attitudes ranging from dismissal to fury. Attacking the US and Australia’s position, Chinese officials said that their diplomats were not even invited to the Olympics in the first place, and that such measures would not matter to them at all. Other comments suggested, however, that they did care. Chinese Foreign Ministry, ambassadors and other foreign officials decried that the boycotts “violated the Olympic spirit”, “created divisions and provoked confrontation”, constituted “a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people” and were carried out “for political self-interest.” They vowed to retaliate against any countries staging this boycott, without specifying what the specific retaliatory measures would be.
In respect of accusations of human rights violations, China has consistently adopted a defensive policy of denial and counteraccusations, which is a core feature of their wolf warrior diplomacy. They deny accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, claiming that their Xinjiang policies were necessary to fight Islamist extremism and separation and develop the region economically. They warned countries like the US, UK and Germany not to interfere in their domestic affairs in regard to human rights abuses in Hong Kong and have consistently labelled accusations of human rights abuse as partisan and ideology-based fake news.
The Sports Diplomacy
One of the most prominent accusations against such diplomatic boycotts is that such diplomatic boycotts constitute political interference into the world of sport. The Olympic Charter Rule 2 states that the mission and role of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to protect its independence and political neutrality. This was interpreted as meaning that the IOC would not criticise a country hosting an Olympic event for their policies outside of sports, including human rights policies. Chinese officials and several other countries seized on this ideal, claiming that the diplomatic boycotts are contaminating sports with political influences.
However, such an argument is a perfect illusion. The sports are inseparable from political agendas. Athletes compete wearing their national flag and accept medals as their national flags rise, because their victory symbolises the strength of their home country. Different host countries have exploited the sports to further their political agenda. China, for example, have used ping pong as a way of fixing their diplomatic ties with the US in the 1970s, and the 2008 Olympics was seen as a means of projecting Chinese power to the world. In another example, somewhat ironically, China had boycotted the Olympics from 1952 to 1980 over the recognition of Taiwan by the international community. The Winter Olympics this year similarly serves political purposes, namely, demonstrating China’s economic strength and remedying their poor image resulting from the pandemic. In another country, South Korea has used the 2018 Winter Olympics as a way of facilitating diplomatic solutions with their North counterparts, which was welcomed by the IOC despite its claim to be apolitical. The sports serve as a useful asset for international soft power which Chinese authorities are fully aware.
Unfortunately, because of the political influence the sports have, they have been susceptible to use as a means of boosting the image of countries with a history of human rights abuses. The 1936 Olympics was a way for Hitler to promote his ideal of white supremacy to the world. The 1964 Olympics was a chance for Japan to remedy their broken image after the World War II. Similarly, this time, China attempts to use the Winter Olympics to deflect from their poor human rights records.
From this perspective, the denunciation of diplomatic boycotts for human rights reasons as political, despite the rights of countries to decide whether to send politicians to the Olympics, is entirely inconsistent with the Olympian history. Diplomacy and sports are inseparable and always will be, and as human rights increasingly feature in diplomatic resolutions, the utilisation of sports as a platform for human rights is inevitable. In fact, the IOC explicitly recognised on 24 January 2022 that human rights are enshrined in the Olympic Charter, and also published a strategy last December to align the Olympics with international human rights law. This further demonstrates the untenability of the artificial distinction between sports on the one hand, and politics and human rights on the other.
In the Name of the Charter
Criticising the diplomatic boycotts as political is not the only card in China’s hands. It also accused the boycotts as a divisive and provocative tool which is at odds with the Olympic Charter which seeks to promote peace and unity. It is true that peace is an important goal of the Olympic events, not least because it has in the past contributed to the relationship between the Nixon administration and China, and its past role in promoting a dialogue between North and South Korea. Some have argued that in accordance with this spirit, the better way to address human rights concerns in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other parts of China would have been to participate in the Winter Olympics and establish a friendly relationship with China, which they said would promote world peace in an era when Chinese relations with the west became increasingly fraught.
However, it is hard to reconcile the Olympic Charter goal of peace with the endorsement of China as an Olympic host country by sending diplomatic representation. The human rights abuses committed against the Uighurs and other dissenters of the Chinese regime are fundamentally at odds with the Olympic spirit of solidarity, peace, human dignity, or in Putin’s words, “equality and justice.” The same can be said for the refusal of Chinese government to engage in any meaningful discussions to address their domestic human rights. The failure of the IOC to recognise this was reminiscent of 1936 when they similarly refused to denounce the Nazi Germany and allowed them to host the Olympics. Today, when genocide is similarly committed against Uighurs, the Olympics repeated its history by allowing the officials accountable an opportunity to host the Olympics, and criticising boycott countries for refusing to endorse Beijing. If countries and the IOC wish to promote the Charter goal of peace, their current stance would at best only promote a superficial idea of peace whereby countries do not interfere with each other while people in the countries continue to suffer from human rights abuses.
A Drop in the Ocean
The final argument advanced against such diplomatic boycott is that it is ineffective. Some had hoped that the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries’ diplomatic boycotts could encourage other countries to follow suit. In this way, they hoped to pressurise Chinese government into engaging in constructive talks about their human rights situations. Not surprisingly, though, the number of countries who staged a boycott turned out to be a small minority, as most countries are hesitant to jeopardise their relationship with a modern-day superpower. Even if they had secured a sizable number of boycotting countries, it would have been difficult to influence the host countries’ domestic policy, as demonstrated by the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics, after which the Soviet Union continued to invade Afghanistan. They made a powerful case that such an effort was futile if the goal was to change China’s domestic human rights situation.
It should not be said that such boycotts have no real impact, however. As China’s aim in hosting the Olympics was to improve their global image and prestige, such boycotts would likely hurt their pride and prestige and draw more attention to the human rights issues. The furious response from China has shown that such an effect has indeed been achieved. Moreover, such a boycott would set a precedent for resisting Chinese efforts to whitewash their image and deflect from their human rights problems and could trigger similar efforts in the years to come. The limitation of the impact of such measures should be acknowledged, however, and as Amnesty International head of campaign Felix Jakens pointed out, further diplomatic measures are urgently needed, such as incorporating human rights safeguards in any trade negotiations.
Even though the practical impact of these diplomatic boycotts turned out to be less powerful as hoped, its symbolic impact should not be ignored. Countries like Canada and the US are probably aware that simply not presenting their diplomats would not change the human rights situations. Nevertheless, it serves as a powerful statement that these countries will not be complicit in endorsing China’s sports-washing and continued violation of human rights, and thereby compromising their principles. Despite this, however, such symbolic effects are also compromised by the accusation of hypocrisy. Some have pointed out that human rights problems are no less rife in countries that staged the boycott; the Black Lives Matter in the US was a prime example. This serves to demonstrate the real difficulties that international human rights efforts continue to face, and the necessity of further rethinking.
