The Moral Case for an Olympic Boycott

It is appealing to consider the Olympics as promoting human flourishing. However, holding the games in China would undermine this, in view of the ambiguity that would follow, since the games would be held in a country - for which there is overwhelming evidence - that executes genocide, forced organ harvesting, forced disappearances, and other injustices. And China would use the games to mask these abuses, promote disinformation, and manipulate participation in the games to justify its policies .

A boycott of the Olympics follows from the moral necessity of critical thinking about the situation in China today. It becomes the first act to resist the instrumentality, injustice and inequality that increasingly make up the norms and values of society today. Critical thinking is morally necessary because it reveals the truth about the abuses of power that hold the majority of the world’s population in a state of marginalisation, exposes many to exploitation, and which subjects some religious and ethnic groups to inhumane treatment and even extermination.

A boycott of the Olympics would be a natural decent response to the evidence of genocide and forced organ harvesting in China; the potential for a replay of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the alarming similarities between China’s policies and direction with those of Nazi Germany.

There are universal principals at stake in China for which we have a moral obligation to defend.?For the past two decades and more, the West especially, invested in China’s economic rise, and continues to do so even as evidence exposes the ambiguous involvement of Western companies and technology in China’s abuses of power over ethnic and religious minorities.?

Western failure to confront China over the pandemic, the internment of up to 3 million ethnic minorities in concentration camps, forced organ harvesting, and forced disappearances is due to unprecedented economic dependence on China for key manufactured goods driven by Chinese mercantilism, and openly supported by Western greed. The Western failure to confront China is also due to the extent to which China has been able to influence the direction of Western policy, as China leverages its infiltration of most sectors and institutions of Western societies.

We must accept a shared responsibility for what is happening in China; participation in the Olympics renders us complicit in genocide, forced disappearances, and forced organ harvesting; instead, we have shared responsibility to act against the massive human cost of China’s abuses of power over religious and ethnic minorities.

Clauses in the Rome Statute refer to the obligation on governments to take action when evidence makes it clear that crimes against humanity and genocide are being pursued by governments in other countries. There only needs to be reasonable grounds for belief that these crimes are taking place to justify taking action; that is, legal proof is not required, the absence of which should not be used for inaction.?

It would seem reasonable to also expect the IOC to be aware of and aligned with universal principles, and the Rome Statute; but also, awarding the 2022 Winter Olympics to China is incompatible with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which are fundamentally grounded on human rights. The IOC seems oblivious to these institutions, and moral agreements. However, it is incumbent upon governments to boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics so as not to undermine their commitment to universal principles, The Rome Statute, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The IOC and by extension the 2022 Beijing Olympics can not be separated from the abuses of power, and the trampling of universal principles in China today.

In 2019, The IOC announced that HYX (Hengyuanxiang Group) will supply the official formal uniforms to the IOC Members and administration for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. However, the Chinese textiles company has a factory in Xinjiang that openly advertises its use of Xinjiang cotton - involving Uyghur slave labour

The IOC’s collusion with the CCP goes back many years. Geneva 2017, Xi conspired with Guterres of the UN, and Thomas Bach of the IOC to close down the Geneva-based UN Office on Sport for Development and Peace, and increase power and control for the IOC and China. The PRC-controlled UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) was to take over the portfolio of the UNOSDP And the IOC took on a new role in the sport and development sector with its newly created Commission for Public Affairs and Social Development through Sport, which at least one expert in the field described at the time as “replacing” the UNOSDP .

The mass-scale human cost of hosting the Olympics somehow seems incompatible with the ‘Olympic spirit’, but to which the IOC is completely indifferent. In the lead-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, China demonstrated its commitment to the IOC’s aims by forcibly displacing 1.5 million residents of Beijing to make room for the games. The IOC awarded China the 2022 Olympics while China has interned up to 3 million Uyghurs and other minorities in concentration camps, and is perpetrating forced organ harvesting against religious and ethnic minorities.

And recently, the IOC revealed itself to be implicated in the CCP’s manipulations of Peng Shuai. In an interview with CNN, Steve Simon, CEO of the WTA confirmed that he had attempted several times to contact Peng, but those efforts failed. He also reiterated his assessment that the IOC video call with Peng was orchestrated, and that Peng was under some form of constraint.

Yet the IOC confirmed that they have held a second call with Peng.?

Why would Peng not receive contact from the WTA to which she was supposed to have written an email regarding her allegations? (The evidence suggests that the email was likely fabricated by CGTN ). And why receive calls from the IOC, an organisation she did not attempt to contact? It was the WTA that was leading global concern about Peng, while the IOC was completely mute.

The first video call between Thomas Bach of the IOC and Peng was likely orchestrated by Bach and Xi Jinping out of fear of a global boycott of the Olympics. Peng appeared in a 30-minute video call with Bach, accompanied by a Chinese sports official who formerly served as the Communist Party secretary of the Tennis Administration Centre of the General Administration of Sport of China.

With a CCP official on the call, Peng could not talk freely. The IOC have not pursued Peng's allegations, it has not aligned with the WTA, and the EU in demanding verifiable proof that she is free. Yet, on the basis of a CCP choreographed video call, in the presence of a CCP minder, the IOC is publicly stating that Peng is OK.

Bach was allowed to contact Peng because Xi Jinping could rely on Bach to ensure no difficult questions were raised; and that is why the WTA were blocked from contacting Peng.

The IOC has rendered itself actively complicit in the CCP's disappearance/house arrest/manipulation of Peng Shuai; and has participated in orchestrating 'proof of life' videos, and disseminating CCP propaganda.

By withdrawing from China the WTA shows that international organisations - and governments - can and should act with moral clarity. IOC claims that they can not influence government policies is a deceit: the issue is about moral clarity, not influence over governments. But, the IOC does have a responsibility for outcomes, and that includes not allowing a repeat of 1936, which also applies to governments. Unless the IOC follows the WTA it will confirm its own moral bankruptcy as it once again aligns with a totalitarian, genocidal regime. And the same arguments apply to governments.