The US, Australia and Canada will “pay the price for their wrongdoing,” warns Beijing. The states do not want to send representatives to the Olympic Games in February.
After the announcement of a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China warned four western countries of the consequences. The US, Australia, the UK and Canada “will inevitably pay the price for their wrongdoing,” said Beijing State Department spokesman Wang Wenbin on Thursday. He denounced the “use of the Olympic platform for political manipulation”.
The US announced on Monday that it would not send government officials to the Olympic Games in February because of human rights violations in China. However, US athletes should take part in the major event. Canada, Britain and Australia joined the diplomatic boycott on Wednesday.
The Chamber of Congress approved the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act almost unanimously with a majority of 428 to one votes. For the law to go into effect it has yet to pass the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.
Germany and France are seeking a European response to a possible diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. This was emphasized by the new German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the French head of department Jean-Yves Le Drian at a joint press conference on Thursday in Paris.
US House of Representatives for Import Bans
Reports of serious human rights violations, including those against the Muslim Uyghur minority in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, have long caused diplomatic tensions between the West and Beijing. It was only on Wednesday that the US House of Representatives passed a law banning imports from the Chinese Uyghur region of Xinjiang for alleged forced labor.
The case of the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai also caused irritation. The former world number one in doubles announced on November 2 via a Chinese Internet platform that former deputy prime minister Zhang Gaoli had forced her to have sex. After that, the 35-year-old initially disappeared from the scene. On November 21, a virtual conversation between the tennis player and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, was published in which she stated that she was fine and safe. Baerbock said: “If a woman makes such allegations, it must be heard in an international context.”
(APA/AFP/Reuters)
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