Uyghur human rights group launches campaign to boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics. The five Olympic rings depict the current situation of Uyghurs in concentration camps, birth control, forced labor, and surveillance. Uyghur Campaign Photos
Following a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics proposed by 180 human rights organizations and members of the U.S. Congress, a U.S. poll shows that Americans support a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics at a higher rate than they oppose it. The poll also shows a bipartisan consensus on human rights in China. Uighur scholars and whistleblowers of China’s doping scandals have said that next year’s Winter Olympics should not be used by China as a tool to whitewash human rights abuses, as was the case with the 2008 Olympics.
A recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an independent U.S. research organization, found that 49 percent of U.S. citizens support a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, up 3 percent from the 46 percent who oppose the boycott.
Yilisati, a Uighur scholar living in the U.S. and director of the World Vision’s China Affairs Department, told the station that the growing public boycott of the Olympics in the U.S. indicates that the world is aware of the challenge and threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the values and order of civilized society. The core part of the Olympic spirit is peace and human dignity. The Chinese Communist regime, which is putting millions of Uighurs in concentration camps, continuing its repression of Tibetans and suppressing civil society, has no business hosting the Olympics.
When the Chinese government puts millions of people in concentration camps, jails thousands of conscientious lawyers, people from the civil movement, and imprisons millions of people in Tubert (meaning Tibet), it is not only a desecration of the Olympics, but also a trampling on human dignity, said Illy Shati. China must not be allowed to host the Olympics until it has entered civilization, and not again as a reward for its bloody repression, as was the case with the 2008 Olympics.
Overseas Uyghurs boycott the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. (Courtesy of Jutice for Uyghurs, Switzerland)
Yang Weidong, the son of Xue Yinxian, a former team doctor of the Chinese national team who was persecuted for disclosing the shady practices of doping in Chinese sports, and who is in exile in Germany with her, expressed her support for boycotting the Olympics from a human rights perspective; in addition, she criticized China’s long-term use of sports as a political project and systematic use of euphoria, which defeats the purpose of Olympic fairness, and she called for a return to the Olympic spirit.
As an artist, Yang Weidong went to the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland earlier to protest. He argued that the Chinese Communist Party had already used the Beijing Summer Olympics as a political showcase back in 2008, and did not rule out using the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics again as a tool to whitewash responsibility for the new crown epidemic and human rights issues.
Yang Weidong said: I strongly support the boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics from a human rights perspective, from the sports themselves, China’s doping is a nail in the coffin, and the CCP uses political means to control sports. 2008 Olympics is a whitewash of their rule, and if the Winter Olympics are really held victoriously, it will be said “how bright, great and right President Xi is”. “But the CCP’s epidemic, the genocide of the Uyghurs, and the human rights issues in Tibet must be cleared up before you can face the Winter Olympics to show whether your position is pro-authoritarian or pro-democracy.
Yang Weidong protests against China’s reduction of sports to political slavery. (Courtesy of Yang Weidong / date of photo unknown)
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs commissioned a third-party poll on U.S.-China relations from March 19-21, interviewing more than 1,000 adults over the age of 18 nationwide via an online questionnaire.
The results of the poll on the issue of “boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics” show that most Republicans approve of the boycott, with 53% supporting the boycott and 42% opposing it, while among Democrats, although the 45% supporting the boycott is lower than the 51% opposing it, the gap is narrowing compared to other China issues. In addition, 40% of respondents in this poll said they support the U.S. sending troops if the Chinese Communist Party unites Taiwan by force.
In addition, in terms of overall views of China, the poll data shows that both Republican and Democratic Party members are negative. Republicans see China’s rise as a serious threat to the United States; while Democrats are generally more inclined to seek a cooperative relationship with Beijing, in a separate Pew Research Center poll, both parties see very serious problems when it comes to human rights in China.
Earlier a coalition of 180 human rights organizations, including the World Vision and the International Tibetan Network, called on leaders to focus on China’s human rights record and boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In February, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, a Republican member of Congress, introduced a bill calling on the Biden administration to consider a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, just as the Carter administration had made a decision to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics, with the support of several lawmakers.
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