The United States
may soon announce a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics scheduled to
be held in Beijing, China in February next year, CNN reported citing several
sources. A diplomatic boycott would entail that no US government official will
attend the Olympics, but American athletes will.

Discussions around
boycotting the Beijing Olympics have been going on for a month now. During a
conversation with the media in November, US President Joe Biden had said that
he was considering a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics over China’s alleged
human rights abuses.

This is not going
to be the first time the United States boycotted the Olympics. While this is
likely to only be a diplomatic boycott, President Jimmy Carter’s administration
had gone for a full boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics in erstwhile Soviet
Union amid the Cold War.

That Joe Biden was
considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics emanated after Biden
held talks with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping last month. Following the
conversation, however, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the
leaders of the United States and China did not discuss the games.

While tensions
between US and China have been on the rise on account of geopolitical power
games, the United States says the boycott call is to protest the human rights
violations of Uyghurs in China. Uyghurs are a Muslim minority group residing in
the autonomous region of Xinjiang.

Over the years,
Beijing has been accused of having detained over a million Uyghurs in ‘re-education
camps’ and sending thousands to prison. Human rights groups as well as several
other countries have slammed China for its alleged rights violations. China,
however, has consistently denied allegations of any wrongdoing.

While the US is
actively considering a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, member states of the European
Union are under pressure to announce a similar boycott.

The series of incidents
surrounding Peng Shuai, a three-time Olympian tennis player who disappeared
after making sexual abuse allegations against a senior member of the Chinese
government and emerged days later, has also ratcheted up pressure on the international
community regarding taking a strong stand ahead of the games set to start in
two months.