After London, Wellington Vilnius, Canberra and Washington, it is Ottawa’s turn to announce that no minister from its government is planning to visit the Chinese capital for the sporting event. What about France?
Canada enters the game. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in turn announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday evening, following in the footsteps of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. “We are deeply troubled by the human rights violations by the Chinese government,” he said at a press conference.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced earlier today that“No minister” of his government was not planning to go there either. “There will indeed be a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics,” Boris Johnson said during the weekly question and answer session in Parliament, stressing that a sports boycott is not “Not politics” of his government.
The United States and Australia have already announced a similar measure. Canberra also followed suit this Wednesday morning by announcing that it will not send any representative of its government to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, joining the United States, which had taken a position on the issue on Monday. Australia’s decision, for its part, comes against a backdrop of “disagreement” with China on a number of issues ranging from Australian foreign interference laws to the recent decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
He also mentioned human rights violations in the Xinjiang region and Beijing’s reluctance to meet with Australian officials for discussions: “Australia will not go back on the strong position it has taken to defend its interests, and it is obviously not surprising that we do not send Australian officials to these Games”.
This decision, which does not prevent athletes from participating in the Games, comes the day after the United States announced its “diplomatic boycott” in the name of the defense of human rights, more particularly the situation in Xinjiang that Washington considers genocide of the Uyghur minority. Beijing immediately retorted that “The United States will pay the price for their bad move”. Around 40 Australian athletes are expected to compete in the Beijing Games, which open on February 4.
Sophie Richardson, director of Human Rights Watch in China, called Australian move a step crucial to challenging the crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese government against Uyghurs and other Turkish communities ”. According to activists, at least one million Uyghurs and other Turkish-speaking minorities, mainly Muslims, are being held in camps in Xinjiang. China is accused of forcibly sterilizing women there and imposing forced labor. Beijing says the camps are in fact vocational training centers intended to keep their residents away from radicalization.
Relations between Australia and China have deteriorated sharply in recent years. China has taken a series of sanctions on Australian products amid a political conflict that plunged bilateral relations into their worst crisis since Tiananmen (1989).
Update : addition this Wednesday at 2 p.m. of the diplomatic boycott of the United Kingdom, then of Canada.
.