The White House announced Monday that it will not send any “diplomatic or official representation” to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
According to The Hill, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said an official delegate will not travel to the games due to “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang.
“The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic games given (China’s) ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” Psaki told reporters during a press briefing.
She continued, “The athletes on team USA have our full support, we will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games. U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRC’s egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang and we simply can’t do that.”
President Biden acknowledged last month that he was considering a boycott over “serious concerns” with human rights issues in China. He reportedly spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, but the 2022 Olympics were not a part of their discussion.
As CBN News has previously reported, Beijing is intent on destroying China’s Muslim Uighur population as part of a broader campaign to unify the country under one ethnic identity.
In Xinjiang Province, they endure torture, rape, forced sterilization, slave labor and are stripped of their Muslim faith and told to embrace Communist ideology.
For months, Congressional Republicans have urged the Biden administration to consider opposing the Olympic Games in Beijing.
In April, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) secured seven amendments, one mandating a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The amendment was passed by the Senate in June.
“The Administration is right to refuse diplomatic presence at the Beijing Olympics: America will not turn a blind eye to China’s predation, persecution, and genocide,” Romney tweeted on Monday.
The Administration is right to refuse diplomatic presence at the Beijing Olympics: America will not turn a blind eye to China’s predation, persecution, and genocide.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 6, 2021
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) applauded the decision, calling it, “absolutely the right decision” on Monday.
And Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the move “has been the obvious choice for some time.”
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