Beijing Winter Olympics 2022: meaningless Western boycott would only prove US weakness

Like many other steps the US government and its allies have taken against China in recent months, such an action would be self-defeating
Attempts to humiliate Beijing on the world stage will only backfire and expose America’s loneliness and inability to sway its allies

Gal Luft

Published: 3:30am, 12 Apr 2021

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With less than 10 months to go before the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, some in Washington are calling for the Biden administration to lead an international boycott of the Games in protest against China’s policies in Xinjiang province.

If the US did decide to boycott the Games, it would be unlikely to go it alone but would do so jointly with like-minded countries. But, just like many other steps the US government has taken against China in recent months, such actions would be self-defeating in more ways than one.

First, Washington could struggle to amass enough partners to make a meaningful impact on the Games. Its most likely partners are Canada, Britain and Australia, with the last two hardly being winter sports superpowers.

Washington’s allies in Asia are less likely to go along with any boycott. With the exception of Japan and South Korea, most Asian countries have little interest in winter sports, but they do have a strong interest in summer sports.

The problem for them is that the upcoming Asian Games will take place in September 2022 in Hangzhou. Those games are critically important for athletes who wish to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

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For the first time, the Asian Games will also include athletes from Oceania, which would probably give Australia pause before it decided to join any US-led boycott. How would these countries be able to justify boycotting the Games in Beijing only to show up in Hangzhou six months later?

If Biden decides to float the idea with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga during the latter’s upcoming state visit to Washington, he is likely to be politely turned down. As host of the Summer Games this July, Japan cannot afford to lend its hand to an act that could violate the spirit of the Olympics.

It also cannot afford to pick a fight with the International Olympic Committee on the eve of an event that has been so challenging and expensive to organise in the midst of a global pandemic. Furthermore, Suga knows that joining any boycott would guarantee a retaliatory boycott of the Tokyo Games as well as other potential economic punishment by Beijing.

In recent months, China has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to retaliate against every perceived action taken against it by the US and its allies. Tariffs invite counter-tariffs; sanctions beget sanctions; and, as Canada can attest, political arrests trigger other political arrests. Just like the Soviet Union organised a boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, China would not take lightly a humiliating snub by the West.

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As hosts of several international sporting events in the coming years, the US and its allies should consider the implications of any Chinese-led retaliatory boycott of the 2026 Fifa World Cup in the US and Canada, the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2030 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Australia could suffer, too, as the IOC recently named Brisbane the preferred bidder for the 2032 Summer Games. Boycotting a fellow host country could weaken its chances of securing the bid.

Washington should consider that boycotting the Games would be the best gift it could give China, Russia and many European countries. In the 23 Winter Games held from 1924 to 2018, the countries that have won most medals are Germany with 408, Norway 368, Russia with 355, the US 305, Austria 232 and Canada 199. The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Italy and Finland have won more than 100 medals each.

China, which has taken part in only the last 11 Winter Games, is on its way to becoming a major player in winter sports after winning 62 medals in total. If the US and Canada were to pull out of the Games, the rest of the world would be able to win medals that would otherwise go to North American athletes.

Washington should also consider the economic implications of angering hundreds of millions of increasingly nationalistic Chinese. American companies that normally sponsor the Olympics such as Coca-Cola, Dow, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and Visa, or other brands with a strong China presence such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, Nike and Apple could be subject to consumer boycotts like the one in response to the boycott of Xinjiang cotton.

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But perhaps the strongest argument against a boycott is that it would make no difference to China’s policies towards the Uygurs. Attempts to humiliate Beijing on the world stage will only backfire. What is more likely is that the boycott would expose America’s loneliness and inability to sway its allies.

There has been only one case of a boycott in the history of the Winter Olympics. That was at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, New York, when mainland China joined the Games for the first time. Taiwanese athletes were prohibited from wearing their Republic of China identification cards and left the Olympics in protest.

More than four decades later, issues surrounding US-China relations again threaten to mar the spirit of the Games. It was wrong then. It is wrong now.

Gal Luft is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). His latest book is “De-dollarisation: The Revolt Against the Dollar and the Rise of a New Financial World Order”