Biden loves the Georgia boycott — So why won’t he boycott the Beijing Olympic games?

President Biden has just created another crisis after applauding Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star game – and the $100 million it meant in business for a majority Black community in Cobb County, Ga. – to lily-white Colorado, a state with similar voting laws. 

The precedent being set by the 46th president is clear: If he disagrees with a local or state law, he will “strongly support” boycotts or outright elimination of events in that area. 

Biden in ESPN interview says he would strongly support MLB relocating the all-star game from Atlanta over the Georgia law.pic.twitter.com/xGBzsFoD6e

— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) April 1, 2021

So, given the precedent being set here, the U.S. will surely boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, right? 

For starters, China was the origin of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 550,000 Americans in just over a year. The communist government wasn’t forthright about its existence in the crucial early stages of what has resulted in the deaths of 2.89 million people worldwide. In response, China not only says it did nothing wrong. It has also accused the U.S. Army of being responsible for COVID-19. 

But even with the coronavirus aside, there’s also the horrific human rights abuses regarding China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims, with an estimated 1.5 million being kept in dozens of internment camps in Xinjiang. If Biden believes and continues to repeat mischaracterization of Georgia’s voting law as in effect Jim Crow 2.0 (despite receiving four Pinocchios from the Washington Post fact-checker), how could he possibly reward China while it engages in genocide? 

And what kind of message does it send to all of those businesses in the Atlanta area that no longer have a much-needed All-Star Game after the pandemic that came from China crippled businesses for more than a year? Overall, Cobb County is expected to lose more than $100 million in business with All-Star weekend shipped to Denver. In a related story, metro Atlanta is 51 percent Black, while Denver is less than 10 percent Black.

“No American president can be sustained as a president, if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States,” Biden recently said of a conversation he had with Xi Jinping. “And so the idea that I am not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China and Taiwan — trying to end the one China policy by making it forceful … [Xi] gets it.”

“Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow,” Biden added. 

Ah, the “norms.” According to a chilling BBC report, the Uighur camps – which total more than 1,000 – include systematic torture, rape and population control.  

The BBC’s expose included an interview with one woman from Xinjiang who was captive for more than a year in the camp system. She described horrific scenarios that included being forced to handcuff women before leaving them to be raped by Chinese men.

“My job was to remove their clothes above the waist and handcuff them so they cannot move,” said Gulzira Auelkhan while illustrating how the women were handcuffed behind their heads. “Then I would leave the women in the room and a man would enter — some Chinese man from outside or policeman. I sat silently next to the door, and when the man left the room, I took the woman for a shower,” she told the BBC.

There are scores of accounts that support these claims that are part of everyday life in these camps. China is also accused of forcing Uighurs to produce clothing and personal protective equipment that is exported to the U.S. for profit. 

As for the CCP’s plan for addressing these charges, it appears its strategy is to go on offense by playing the race card against the U.S. Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign affairs official, recently told a delegation that included Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that the U.S. was slaughtering Black men in America.  

“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States,” Yang also said. 

While White House press secretary Jen Psaki has repeatedly punted on questions about a possible boycott, State Department spokesman Ned Price opened the door to a possible joint boycott with “allies and partners” earlier this week. 

Some Republicans are amping up pressure on Biden to be consistent about boycotts. Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo is calling for the Games to be moved in the same fashion that the Atlanta All-Star game was. And a group of 180 human rights organizations are calling for a boycott of the Beijing games set to start next February. 

So, what’s it going to be, Mr. president? 

Strongly support Major League Baseball on moving its All-Star Game, but bow to China as it continues to carry out genocide? More than a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?

The U.S. boycotted the Moscow Winter Games in 1980 after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. It was the right thing to do at the time. Biden can match his words with action by boycotting Beijing in 2021, or at least demanding it be moved. 

Will it happen? Don’t hold your breath. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist for The Hill.