Arkansas Senator Asks Biden To Show China We Mean Business With A Big Message For The Winter Olympics

It seems simple: No move from China on human rights, no freedom for tennis star Peng Shuai to leave the country and free speech, no US involvement in the Olympics. Beijing Winter Festival 2022.

It seem simple enough. And yet, less than three months before the Olympics are set to open, it seems likely that if the administration of President Joe Biden sends any kind of message, it will be a weak one.

Mr. Tom Cotton, GOP Arkansas, Senator Tom Cotton, said.

Cotton is the highest-ranking Republican to call out of the Olympics; in a statement on November 18, he called them the “Olympics of Genocide” and called on the “Biden administration to implement a complete and complete boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics – no there are athletes, no management officials, no corporate sponsors”, according to NBC News.

“I regret that this will stop about 300 world-class Americans athlete from competing in the Olympics,” said Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I sympathize with them. However, they were defeated by this administration, who months – months ago – could have worked with our allies to develop a plan to conduct these Olympics in another country.

The United States must implement a complete and total boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The threat to our athletes and China’s crimes against humanity leave us with no other choice. pic.twitter.com/lSLvKhJPMd

– Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 18, 2021

“They were defeated by the leaders of the international Olympic movement, who should never have handed these Games over to a communist tyranny.”

That doesn’t seem to be in the cards, alas. The same day Cotton made his remarks, Biden said that the White House was considering a so-called diplomatic boycott – there will be no American officials in Beijing attending the Games, but athletes and sponsors will be there.

That’s not a foregone conclusion, though – it’s “something we’re looking at,” Biden said ahead of talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, when asked about the possibility of a boycott, was similarly evasive.

President Joe Biden confirms the US is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, a move in protest of China’s human rights record https://t.co/abiUoQIfUQ pic.twitter.com/c3k2d2GH0I

– Reuters (@Reuters) November 18, 2021

This is not enough, Cotton said, because the administration has no plan to protect American athletes – something he said asked the White House nearly five months ago and only recently received a response.

“The total response to my letter was that they didn’t have a plan,” Cotton said. “They don’t have a plan to protect our athletes and their coaches and staff from the very real and very specific dangers I outlined last June.”

Those concerns include “pervasive surveillance” of American athletes, DNA harvesting and the potential for hostage taking.

Furthermore, Cotton added, “We should boycott these Games because of China’s crimes against the United States, the civilized world, and its own people.”

Amid micro- and macro-scale crimes – Uighur genocide and forced labor, suppression of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, forced disappearance of ensemble star racket Peng Shuai after she accused a Chinese Communist Party apparatus of sexual assault – again, the decision should be easy.

But it was not.

The general sentiment on Capitol Hill is a diplomatic boycott, from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics because of China’s forced labor practices:

“How sad it is to see sponsors of Olympic corporations look the other way at China’s abuses out of concern for their profits.” pic.twitter.com/S16nUOGCiZ

– Amount (@therecount) May 18, 2021

Appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Cruz said that of the total boycott, “Jimmy Carter tried it in the 1970s; All it does is punish a generation of athletes.” (Cruz was referring to Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.)

Instead, he called on the US team to show “the courage that the Women’s Tennis Association is showing in calling for its own killings, genocide, torture, lies, complicity on COVID-19 by itself.” Chinese Communist authority, speak the truth. ”

He also said he hoped “our young men and women, that they go there and kick their ass,” adding, “We need to win the Olympics.”

However, these are all wishful thinking. The International Olympic Committee does not allow much political speech, for better or for worse. (Much worse, in this case, when an autocracy was given to the Olympics.)

And, in terms of stoning the ass and getting names, the biggest win here is the fact that China gets to host a propaganda festival on a global scale even though it’s the world’s top human rights violator and the government’s shameful disobedience to Origin of COVID-19. There is no luge medal large enough to counter that.

It remains unclear whether the Biden administration will implement a diplomatic boycott – as Cotton pointed out, “the absolute bare minimum that any civilized nation would do for this genocidal Olympics”.

With the stakes being what they are, the bare minimum is not enough. If America is really back on the table – as the president wants to tell us, ad nauseam – Biden needs to take the lead by setting an example and pulling America’s Olympic team out.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who divides his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he has been writing for the Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.

C. Douglas Golden is a writer who divides his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he has been writing for the Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Outside of politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially story fiction. British painting and modern Japanese lighting), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (both America and the world).

Place of birth

Morristown, New Jersey

Education

Catholic University of America

Spoken language

English, Spanish

Professional topics

American Politics, World Politics, Culture