The 2022 Beijing Olympics: There’s a lesson in the boycott of apartheid sports

“Let’s not honor the Chinese government by having heads of state go to China,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at the recent bipartisan congressional hearing jointly hosted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the Congressional-Executive Committee on China. “For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing, while you’re sitting there in your seat, really begs the question: What moral authority do you have to speak again about human rights any place in the world?” 

We strongly support Pelosi’s rightful call for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In response to her comments, China labeled “some U.S. individuals” as being “full of lies and disinformation.” China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said “U.S. politicians should stop using the Olympic movement to play despicable political games.” Both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympics Committee (IOC), have proclaimed that sports and politics don’t mix and the Games should not be “politicized.”

As human rights activists, we are all too familiar with what is meant by the “politicization” of an event, be it academic, sports, cultural, business or entertainment. We also know that if Xi does not like a stance on any issue, he calls it an act of politicization.   

According to the Olympic Charter, the goal of the Games is “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Genocide — such as that which is happening to China’s Uyghurs in Xinjiang — is the antithesis of the “harmonious development of humankind,” and forced labor does not preserve human dignity. The Beijing Olympics naturally would be political because genocide and coerced labor are human rights abuses that compel the world’s attention.

The 2022 Games will attract diplomats and dignitaries from every continent and advance Xi’s political aims and prestige — as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) likely intends. The world must understand that these Olympics will become Xi’s, as Andrea Worden points out, just as the 1936 Berlin Games were Hitler’s. The world made a mistake in 1936 that it must not repeat in 2022. Here are several arguments to heed: 

First, allowing Beijing to host the Games, without protest or opposition, serves as tacit approval of the CCP’s model of authoritarian capitalism, digital totalitarianism and rights-free development.  

Second, by supporting, attending and participating in the Games, the rest of the world will become complicit in China’s Uyghur genocide and other crimes against humanity, enabling China to actively promote, and possibly export, its repressive human rights agenda.

Third, the Games will serve as a de facto international coronation of Xi, essentially recognizing him as “leader-for-life” prior to his potential coronation eight months later, when he is set to break the previous two-term presidential limit and enter a third term.

Fourth, the Games will serve as a vehicle to drive Chinese nationalistic fervor, which is a major source of legitimacy for the CCP.

Fifth, the Games will be a propaganda spectacle through which the CCP will boast about China’s successful containment of COVID-19, its economic recovery, and its “harmonious society” and “ethnic unity.” This will propagate the view that a “Chinese solution” paves the way toward a happy, prosperous, pandemic-free world, as Worden has warned. The CCP seeks to project its “soft power” globally, in order to advance its rise on the world stage.

Sixth, participating in or attending the Games will be recognition of Xi’s vision of a “community of common destiny for mankind,” which is poised to become a key narrative of the Games.

The history of the IOC shows that modern Olympic Games always have been political and utilized to pressure reprehensible governments. The international campaign to end apartheid employed the Olympics as one instrument for the anti-apartheid movement. In 1964, the IOC withdrew its invitation to South Africa for the Summer Olympics because the country refused to permit its athletes to be racially integrated. In 1968, the IOC did not invite South Africa back to the Olympics because African countries threatened to boycott the Games. At the same time, the United Nations Campaign Against Apartheid promoted boycotts against apartheid sports. 

In 1970, the IOC expelled South Africa from the body’s membership. During the 1960s and 1970s, massive demonstrations followed South Africa’s rugby team during its international tours, and in the 1980s, more international sports organizations expelled South Africa. All of these efforts led the IOC to adopt a declaration against apartheid in sporting events in 1988.

We should learn from our success with these anti-apartheid initiatives. International boycotts against apartheid in sports were some of the most effective measures. If the odious practice of racial separation and discrimination rightly motivated states and international sporting bodies to take concerted actions, surely the world can agree that China’s treatment of Muslims and other ethnic minorities deserves an urgent response. 

Speaker Pelosi is absolutely right. The U.S. and other democracies — indeed, all other states — should use the occasion of the 2022 Winter Games to protest Beijing’s genocide and not permit the Olympics to advance the communist regime’s political aims.

Jianli Yang is founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor, and a former political prisoner in China.

Lianchao Han is vice president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, he was one of the founders of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars. He worked in the U.S. Senate for 12 years, as legislative counsel and policy director for three senators.

Editor’s note: This piece was edited after publication.