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Western allies remain unhappy with China over its history of human rights abuses, including civil liberties violations in Xinjiang and the crackdown on pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong, a former British colony that was re-ruled by China in 1997.
After the United States’ announcement last Monday, in which it made its boycott against the 2022 Winter Olympics official, other nations have joined the position and a few others are still considering the possibility of doing so.
Australia was one of the countries to join the boycott “for diplomatic reasons” through an announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“I do it because it is in the national interest of Australia,” argued Morrison, who also explained that it is not a surprise that his country takes that position after the relationship with China “has been broken in recent years.”
And while the Australian government wants to improve its relationship with the Asian giant and talk about their differences, “there has been no obstacle for that to happen on our part, but the Chinese government has not consistently accepted those opportunities for us to meet,” he said. Morrison.
He also announced that, like the United States, Australian athletes will be able to participate without any problem in the competitions.
China responded furiously. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said his country “has not invited any Australian government officials to attend the Winter Olympics, and no one cares whether they come or not.”
Despite the fact that Wang accused Australia of “blindly following certain countries in their footsteps to confuse what is right and wrong” and having filed severe complaints with Canberra, he did not threaten to apply “countermeasures” against the Australian country as he did with USA.
UK also takes a stance
On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the United Kingdom will also diplomatically boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics by not sending any member of the British Government to the global event.
“There will indeed be a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. No minister is expected to attend. What I can tell the House is that I don’t think sports boycotts are sensible, and that remains the government’s policy. “
The political move was taken in protest at China’s questionable record of human rights abuses, such as those in the northwestern province of Xinjiang and the crackdown on democratic protests in Hong Kong.
Johnson also said that, although British politics did not used to have this type of decision against sporting events, he assured that this is a measure that his country needed to support: “I do not think that sports boycotts are sensible; that is still the policy of the Government. “.
It is still not entirely clear if the British royal family will attend the 2022 Games in February, as Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, was an Olympic Amazon and is president of the British Olympic Association.
China’s relations with the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia have plummeted after the three Western countries announced in September that they were forming a strategic alliance in the Indo-Pacific that allows them to share more defense capabilities and what will provide it to Australia nuclear reactors to power its submarines.
Canada follows in the footsteps of the United States
Seeking to send a clear message, Canada also joined the United States’ initiative to take a political stance against China.
It was the Canadian prime minister who made the announcement on Wednesday, when he explained that Beijing should understand the West’s longstanding concern over allegations of human rights violations in China and that for this reason “it should not be a surprise that we have decided not to send representation. diplomat”.
Canada remains deeply disturbed by reports of human rights violations in China. As a result, we won’t be sending diplomatic representatives to Beijing for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. We’ll continue to support our athletes who work hard to compete on the world stage.
– Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) December 8, 2021
“We announced today that we will not send any diplomatic representation to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing this winter. Our athletes have been training for years and are looking forward to competing at the highest level against athletes from around the world, and they will continue to count on our full support to demonstrate Canada’s extraordinary success at the Winter Olympics. ” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The bilateral relationship between Canada and China has been affected since the Xi Jinping government detained two Canadians in China in December 2018, an event that came very close to the arrest of Men Wanzhou, Canada’s chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. , by means of an extradition request from the United States
With AP and Reuters
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