US President Joe Biden has said he is considering a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will be held in China. The action would be a way to demonstrate the eastern country’s disapproval of the allegations of human rights violations. When asked about the topic, Biden said “it’s something we’re looking at”.
The remarks come just days after a virtual summit held between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed to defuse tensions between the two countries over the Covid-19 pandemic, trade policies, Taiwan and other important points. have grown.
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If the boycott is confirmed, US relations with China could be disrupted again, with other countries under increasing pressure to stop attending the Games. Human rights defenders spent months making lobby Behind the scenes in the White House should be boycotted.
Biden, however, does not have the power to call for a total US boycott of an edition of the Olympic Games. The decision is exclusive to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committees, which do not indicate their acceptance of the idea.
As such, what could be done by a North American president would be the absence of representatives from the highest levels of government, which would show great contempt on the part of the great power. First Lady Jill Biden leads the US delegation to the latest Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
China is facing a dispute related to human rights. Peng Shuai, a former Chinese tennis player in the world rankings, has condemned an episode of sexual assault by former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli, and his whereabouts are not known.
The 36-year-old tennis player accused the social network Weibo, the only microblog in the Asian country, known as “Chinese Twitter”. Minutes after publication, the post was censored and removed.
