The Biden administration will not be sending any diplomatic representatives to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as a statement against Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Psaki said the administration was sending a “clear message” that the human rights abuses in China mean there cannot be “business as usual.”
Psaki said in the press briefing on Monday that “The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang”.
Psaki added that Team USA has the administration’s “full support” but that the administration would not be “contributing to the fanfare of the game.”
“US 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,” Psaki said.
Psaki said that the diplomatic boycott of the games does not mean “that is the end of the concerns we will raise about human rights abuses.”
Asked whether the US is trying to get other allies to join the US in the diplomatic boycott, Psaki said the White House has informed its allies of the US decision and “obviously we will leave it to them to make their own decisions.”
Psaki also said the White House did not feel it was the “right step” or fair, to penalize US athletes by holding an entire US boycott of the Olympics.
