Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) introduced a measure on Monday urging the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics, which are set to take place in Beijing, China.
“The Chinese Communist Party has carried out a number of heinous acts in the last year alone that should disqualify them from hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics,” Waltz said in a statement. “The world cannot legitimize the CCP’s acts of genocide in Xinjiang, destruction of the democratic rights of Hong Kong, and dangerous suppression of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan that cost lives by sending delegations to Beijing.”
The measure highlights the findings from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for 2020’s report on China, which includes that China and the Chinese Communist Party “have taken unprecedented steps in the last year to extend their repressive policies through censorship, intimidation, and the detention of individuals and groups for exercising their fundamental human rights, especially in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and Hong Kong.”
The measure notes that an estimated nearly 2 million people have been detained in China’s internment camps where they are subjected to “forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination.”
Waltz noted that China dismantled the “one country, two systems” framework in Hong Kong and has “severely undermin[ed]” the “rule of law and respect for human rights that the territory has long enjoyed.”
The measure notes how China has “further intensified campaigns that aim to bring religion in China under closer official control, and authorities have expanded campaigns to target, control, and surveil not only religions deemed ‘foreign’ like Christianity, Islam, and Tibetan Buddhism, but also traditional Chinese religions.”
The resolution also highlights failures surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, including the suppression of doctors in Wuhan who were trying to sound the alarm about the coronavirus.
“Think about what we’ve gone through in the last year as a country – what it is doing to our children, to our elderly, to our families in terms of the coronavirus,” Waltz told Fox News, adding that it was “indisputable at this point that the Chinese Communist Party covered” up the coronavirus outbreak.
“So you have that, on top of, what is increasingly coming to light a genocide – forced labor, internment,” Waltz continued. “To see the American flag and to see American athletes in Beijing celebrating what is the worst of the worst authoritarian regimes right now – I can’t imagine it. It makes me sick to think of the Olympics – in just 11 months – being celebrated in Beijing after all of that.”
The resolution urges the following:
- Recognition, celebration and support for the commitment, dedication, and patriotism of the 2022 United States Winter Olympics Team athletes, coaches, trainers, and staff.
- That the United States Olympic Committee propose the transfer of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games to a site other than within the People’s Republic of China.
- That the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should transfer the 2022 Winter Olympic games to a site other than within the People’s Republic of China.
- That, if the International Olympic Committee rejects such a proposal, the United States Olympic Committee and the Olympic Committees of other countries should withdraw from the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
- The Secretary of State is requested to transmit a copy of this resolution to the government of each country that is represented on the International Olympic Committee.
The #CCP's actively:
– Committing genocide & mass internment of Uighurs & other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang
-Undermining democratic rights & dismantling of ‘one country, two systems’ framework in Hong Kong
– Lying about COVID since the start
(1/2)— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) February 15, 2021