A Jan. 20 vote by the French Parliament should give rise to a broader and more effective movement against the Chinese Communist Party: The entire free world should boycott the Winter Olympics.
To its great credit, the French Parliament voted 169-1 that France “officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide.” Moreover, it says the French government should help protect the Uyghur minority by taking “the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China.”
The British, Dutch, Canadian, and U.S. governments have also labeled the Chinese treatment of Uyghurs as “genocide.” On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron specified that China is guilty of “massacres, massive deportations, and forced labor.” The Chinese government has refused requests from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights to investigate its practices.
Formal resolutions are better than nothing, but it’s time to hit China harder. Despite how unfair it will be to athletes who have worked so hard for the chance at Olympic glory, the free world should massively embarrass China with an economically harmful boycott — not just because of China’s genocide, although that alone should suffice, but for multiple reasons that together should make the Chinese government an absolute pariah.
The Chinese government clearly sees the Olympics, which begin Feb. 4, as a prestige event. The free world should destroy its prestige.
A joint proclamation of boycott should include the following elements augmented, of course, by the appropriate “whereas” and “be it resolved” clauses.
First, it should say no nation that practices genocide should host an international gathering that carries even the slightest connotation of honor.
Second, it should castigate the Red Chinese for unleashing the coronavirus pandemic on the whole world. The pandemic is absolutely the fault of the Chinese government. There’s plenty of evidence (even if it’s not absolutely definitive) that faulty lab practices, for which China had been warned several times, allowed the coronavirus to escape and spread in horrendously unsanitary wet markets nearby. However it began, China’s cover-ups and outright lies about the contagion kept the world largely in the dark during crucial early weeks when, with proper warnings, the coronavirus might have been far better contained. The Chinese government and its works should be shunned for causing hardship, misery, and death for hundreds of millions of people.
Third, the boycott proclamation should excoriate Red China for destroying freedom in Hong Kong. Against its solemn treaty obligations and, worse, against human decency, the Chinese government took a major, thriving, democratic, semi-independent metropolis and turned it into an authoritarian horror zone. In protest of the crimes the government has committed against the people of Hong Kong, no decent nation should join the Beijing Olympics.
Fourth, the free nations of the world should make clear that Chinese saber-rattling against Taiwan, other neighbors, and all who dare traverse the rightly international waters of the China Sea is unacceptable behavior. Also unacceptable are Chinese abuses of worker rights (and allegedly other human rights) while pursuing China’s aggressive and sometimes rapacious Belt and Road Initiative that, frankly, aims to upend free trade in favor of an exploitative worldwide collection of satrapies.
The first of the eight “fundamental principles of Olympism” requires “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” Red China regularly and flagrantly violates universal norms of ethical behavior. By shunning these particular games, the free world can make a stand for larger Olympic values. It would be wrong to play in the Peking muck.
