The International Olympic Committee is patting itself on the back for how it rug-swept the disappearance of Peng Shuai while making deals with Chinese businesses affiliated with slave labor and surveillance. The organization’s shamelessness grows ahead of the 2022 Games.
The IOC touted its handling of Peng’s disappearance in a letter to Congress, noting that it could choose public pressure or “quiet diplomacy.” It chose the latter and celebrated that “quiet diplomacy works.”
The IOC can’t help set up a meeting between Peng and international journalists, but don’t worry — she took part in a propaganda event in Shanghai, so she must still be alive. All is well, the IOC assures us.
With #Beijing2022 Olympics set to start next week, the Chairs remain concerned about the health and safety of #PengShuai. We share today the inadequate response by @iocmedia to our letter seeking answers about whether her sexual assault claim was being addressed. pic.twitter.com/ZxeisT7P3l
— China Commission (@CECCgov) January 26, 2022
The IOC has assured us of this all along. Even when Peng had not been seen in public, the organization accepted the clearly faked or coerced email that the Chinese government claimed was from Peng as proof that she was all right. The useless idiots at the IOC were chosen to hold a call with Peng, while more concerned organizations, such as the Women’s Tennis Association, were shut out. IOC President Thomas Bach assured everyone that Peng just wants privacy.
It’s not like she’s being held hostage by her own government!
Meanwhile, the IOC’s latest installment of the Winter Olympics is a nest for Chinese espionage. The official translation services provider for the Games has been blacklisted by the United States for being “implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”
Huawei, the Chinese technology firm that has been blacklisted by the U.S. as a national security threat, will be heavily involved in communications for the Games. The IOC also signed a deal with Alibaba to be its exclusive provider of cloud services at the Games — another Chinese company deemed a possible national security threat to the U.S. American athletes have been encouraged to leave their personal phones at home, and athletes from other countries have been warned about potential surveillance.
To top it all off, the IOC finalized uniform deals with Anta Sports and Hengyuanxiang Group, two apparel companies that proudly advertise their use of cotton from Xinjiang, where Uyghur slave labor is used. The IOC doesn’t care, of course, because the companies promised that they at least wouldn’t use slave labor cotton for Olympic uniforms.
The IOC’s shamelessness is the natural result of its total lack of accountability for its awful decisions. This began when it once again awarded the Olympics to China. No one had discussed boycotts or any other sanctions against the IOC when it granted China the 2008 Olympics, and world leaders are once again letting the organization off the hook for the 2022 Genocide Games.
