The Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Olympics gets underway today. But count me among those who will be jeering, not cheering.
In fact, I was in the vanguard of those who called for a conventional boycott. Notably, The New York Times published an Op-Ed on March 15, 2021 by Sen. Mitt Romney titled “The Right Way to Boycott the Beijing Olympics.” He called for a diplomatic boycott.
I argued that Western governments’ genocide declarations demanded more than diplomatic boycotts or targeted sanctions. I called for relocating the Beijing 2022 Olympics entirely, based on the same principle that moved Western countries to boycott Moscow 1980. The categorical imperative was even greater given China’s treatment of Uighurs.
I reinforced those points in “Relocate (Don’t Boycott) Beijing 2022 Olympics!“ a few weeks later. Clearly, I lost the argument. But now athletes are facing the untenable prospect of competing in an environment that smacks of a cross between a leper colony and an internment camp.
Not to mention that some athletes are seeing their Olympic dreams summarily dashed based on Covid tests that any reasonable person would have just cause to question. I mean, what’s to prevent Chinese officials from targeting certain athletes for positive Covid results to eliminate them from competition? This would boost Team China’s chances of winning more gold.
Because I don’t trust them any more than I trust the Russians who used a state-sanctioned doping program to win more gold when they hosted the Sochi 2014 Olympics…
The country wants the global spotlight so it can display its remarkable rise, yet Beijing is hypersensitive to criticism of human rights abuses at home and growing friction with countries abroad.
Olympic athletes are being greeted by Chinese officials in hazmat suits conducting COVID-19 tests. The competitors will be restricted to a secure COVID bubble throughout their time in China. The FBI has urged U.S. athletes to leave their phones at home and take only a disposable burner phone to protect sensitive personal information against possible hacking.
(NPR, February 3, 2022)
How’s that for a superpower snowflake. Ha! Frankly, I hope every Western athlete seizes every opportunity to defy China’s attempt to prevent criticism. Because what better way to make a mockery of Xi’s presumption that he can have the whole world live in mortal fear of causing even a slight crack while walking on the egg shells that constitute respecting China’s increasingly Orwellian, woke culture.
That said, regular readers know of my customary practice of ignoring all other world events to comment exclusively and exhaustively on the Olympic events … every day. But to honor my own call for a boycott of these games, this is the first time since iPINIONS was launched in 2005 that I am not going to comment on a single event.
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