As the Beijing Winter Olympics kick off today, it’s important to remember we are sending our athletes to compete in a totalitarian and hostile country that could very well do them harm.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted so herself on Thursday, warning U.S. athletes participating in the Games not to speak out against China’s human rights abuses because of how the Chinese Communist Party might respond. She said she shares their concerns and criticized the International Olympic Committee for turning “a blind eye” to China’s record “just to bolster their bottom line.” But the risk to athletes is just too great, she added.
“I would say to our athletes: You are there to compete. Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless,” she said. “I know there is a temptation on the part of some to speak out while they are there. I respect that. But I also worry about what the Chinese government might do to their reputations, to their families.”
Pelosi is making an excellent argument for why we never should have sent our athletes to the Beijing Olympics in the first place. Our position should have been: If the IOC is going to allow a country that stifles free speech, intimidates critics, and threatens the safety of our citizens to host an international event, we will not participate in that event and we will ask our allies to do the same.
Instead, our leaders have resorted to issuing milquetoast condemnations of China’s record that, while true, are not backed by any substantive action. As a result, our athletes are walking into an environment where they’ll be surveilled and spied on, to the point where they can’t even bring their personal phones to the Olympics, and threatened if they try to stand for what’s right.
This is a failure, one that was completely avoidable. We could and should have done more to protect our athletes and move the Games out of China. It would be nice to hear leaders like Pelosi admit as much.
