For the time being, the campaign for Washington was a success: the Chinese leadership reacted angrily that Joe Biden will not send a diplomatic mission to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022. Foreign office spokesman Zhao Lijian threatened countermeasures and snorted that the winter games were not a stage for political power games and manipulation. That is of course an illusion. The Olympic Games are always an opportunity for the host country’s government to present themselves to international guests. She therefore has to endure that the guests not only pay homage to her politely, but also ask questions. Critical too. Social aspects can also become an issue – and with them the human rights situation.
The Biden government wants to point out the sometimes untenable conditions, especially with regard to minorities. With success: your decision to boycott the games next February attracted huge international attention. If Beijing reacts with countermeasures, it only raises the issue even more. In doing so, the communist leadership would prefer to cast a cloak of silence about the violence with which they are cracking down on the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, for example.
With the diplomatic boycott, Joe Biden has chosen a relatively gentle means of drawing attention to the precarious handling of human rights in China. The US government usually sends senior officials to the Olympics. The recent summer games in Japan, for example, were attended by a delegation headed by First Lady Jill Biden with a lot of fanfare, which the hosts liked.
Nevertheless, the concrete effects of not making such visits tend to be zero. When, for example, Joachim Gauck demonstratively did not take part in the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, as Federal President in 2014, it was a big issue in Germany, but hardly noticed internationally.
Americans want to send a geopolitical signal
It would be different with a complete boycott in which the USA also prohibits its athletes from participating. This has happened several times since 1956, when Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain suspended the Summer Games in protest against the invasion of Hungary by Warsaw Pact troops. The last major action took place in 1984 when most of the Eastern Bloc countries stayed away from the Los Angeles Summer Games in revenge for the western boycott of Moscow in 1980.
This time the Americans are primarily concerned with sending a geopolitical signal to China. The diplomatic boycott fits in seamlessly with a whole series of decisions Biden with which he adjusts the China policy of the USA and touches China a little harder. But Beijing also tested the Biden government from the start: At the first meeting of high-ranking representatives in Alaska in March, for example, the top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi publicly attacked the American delegation headed by Foreign Minister Antony Blinken. Since then, Biden has endeavored to improve the atmosphere for discussions, for example in video conferences with China’s President Xi Jinping. China is both a partner, as in the fight against climate change, and a competitor, economically and politically, explains Biden.
While Donald Trump operated primarily with punitive tariffs, Biden is increasingly relying on the military map when dealing with China. In mid-September he announced a new security alliance with Great Britain and Australia, Australia will receive nuclear-powered submarines to better withstand China in the Indo-Pacific. The signal was stronger, but similar to now: the West’s patience has limits, a minimum of common values is necessary for economic cooperation.
When China allowed around 150 aircraft to penetrate Taiwan’s air defense zone in October in order to militarily mark its claim to the island off the Chinese coast, Washington reacted: Biden publicly assured Taiwan several times of American support.
European Parliament is also calling for a boycott
Adding to all these tensions was concerns about tennis player Peng Shuai, who temporarily disappeared after making rape allegations against former Vice Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli. Against this clouded background, Beijing could have interpreted it as a sign of weakness if the US had taken part in the Olympic Games without reacting.
How strong the signal to the leadership of China will be depends on other countries as well. The European Parliament has been calling for diplomatic visits to be dispensed with during the Olympics in Beijing since the summer. If a number of countries follow suit, China will be able to make the subject of human rights even less taboo.