White House leaves door available to boycotting 2022 Beijing Olympics as pressure grows

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White House leaves door open to boycotting 2022 Beijing Olympics as pressure grows

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A reporter takes a look at a screen at the exhibit center for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in Yaqing district on February 5, 2021 in Beijing, China.

Kevin Frayer | Getty Images

The Biden administration has yet to choose whether the U.S. will boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the White House stated Thursday, as pressure grows to bail out of the video games in demonstration of China’s conduct.

“There hasn’t been a final decision made on that, and of course we would look for guidance from the U.S. Olympic Committee,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated throughout a rundown when asked where President Joe Biden based on the concern.

That reaction marked a minor shift from previously this month, when Psaki signified that the U.S. would not alter its strategies to take part in the quadrennial Winter Games. “We’re not currently talking about changing our posture or our plans as it relates to the Beijing Olympics,” she stated Feb. 3.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee spokesperson Jon Mason in a declaration informed CNBC that the committee opposes boycotts “because they have been shown to negatively impact athletes while not effectively addressing global issues.”

“We believe the more effective course of action is for the governments of the world and China to engage directly on human rights and geopolitical issues,” Mason’s declaration stated.

The video games are set to open on Feb. 4, 2022.

A growing variety of Republican political leaders are requiring Biden to boycott next year’s video games, or for the International Olympic Committee to move them out of Beijing. They point out China’s reported treatment of Uighur Muslims in the northwest area of Xinjiang, which the Trump administration designated a genocide.

The critics likewise indicate China’s record on the coronavirus pandemic, which is thought to have actually come from the city of Wuhan. At least 506,500 individuals in the U.S., and 2.5 million worldwide, have actually passed away from the infection, according to information put together by Johns Hopkins University.

“To see the American flag and to see American athletes in Beijing celebrating what is the worst of the worst authoritarian regimes right now – I can’t imagine it,” GOP Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida informed Fox News after presenting a resolution targeted at pulling the 2022 Olympics out of China.

A group of Republican senators advance a comparable resolution previously in February, and rights advocacy groups have actually attacked the IOC for stopping working to challenge Beijing’s human rights infractions.

In a Fox News op-ed Thursday early morning, previous United Nations Ambassador and ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, stated China “is more obviously dangerous today than Nazi Germany was in 1936.”

The U.S. took part in that year’s Summer Olympics in Berlin — however Haley argues the U.S. would have boycotted those video games had it “known what Nazi Germany would become.”

“President Biden must make the decision to boycott. It shouldn’t be a tough one,” composed Haley, who is commonly reported to be thinking about a future governmental run.