US mulls diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics
WASHINGTON, United States — President Joe Biden said Thursday he was considering a US diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, in what would be an attempt to show toughness over China's rights abuses without impacting US athletes.
That is "something we are considering," Biden told reporters while meeting with Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, at the White House. The Beijing Olympics take place next February.
Biden's comment followed a video summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping late Monday, during which the two leaders said they wanted to ensure stability and prevent accidental conflicts.
However, Biden is under pressure at home to speak out on China's human rights abuses, especially in Xinjiang where the US government says repression of the Uyghur ethnic group qualifies as genocide.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration would soon announce a diplomatic boycott, meaning that while athletes would still compete, government representatives would not be in the stands.
White House officials said that the issue was not raised during the Biden-Xi virtual summit.
No decision yet
Under Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, US-Chinese relations hit a low point with a massive trade war and incendiary debate over how the Covid-19 virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Biden has sought to reengage with Beijing, while at the same time focusing on strengthening traditional US alliances to counter China's ever-growing economic clout and military presence across the Indo-Pacific region.
He has held two lengthy phone calls with Xi and was keen to meet in person. However, with the Chinese leader not traveling outside of the country since the start of the Covid pandemic, this week's virtual summit was the only possible next step.
Following Biden's mention of a possible Olympics boycott, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she did not "have an update on what our presence will be."
"I want to give the national security team and the president space to make the decision," she said.
For Biden, that decision will be part of a complex diplomatic balancing act.
His administration has left Trump-era trade tariffs on China in place and continues to order naval patrols through sensitive international sea lanes that China is accused of trying to bring under its control.
However, with Biden also emphasizing the need for dialogue, critics on the right say he is being too soft.
This makes the looming Olympic Games a political flashpoint.
"The United States must implement a complete and total boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The threat to our athletes and China’s crimes against humanity leave us no other option," Republican Senator Tom Cotton tweeted Thursday.
Psaki said the White House sees US-China relations "through the prism of competition, not conflict."
However she added "we have serious concerns" about human rights.
The US decision to disinvite China from upcoming maritime exercises in the Pacific is "non-constructive," China's Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi says.
"We find that a very non-constructive move," Wang says at a press conference with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after the two met in Washington.
"It's also a decision taken lightly and is unhelpful to mutual understanding between China and the US." — Agence France-Presse
The United States accuses China of orchestrating a "concerted" campaign of dangerous and provocative air force maneuvers against US military planes in international airspace, warning such moves could spark inadvertent conflict between the two powers.
The Pentagon says aggressive tactics by Chinese aircraft threatened US planes flying over the East and South China Sea regions, tallying more than 180 such incidents since fall 2021 -- "more in the past two years than in the decade before that," said Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs. — AFP
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calls on China, a partner of Iran, to use its influence to push for calm in the Middle East after Hamas militants struck Israel, provoking retaliation and fears that violence will spread.
The top US diplomat, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, had a "productive" one-hour telephone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says.
"Our message was that he thinks it's in our shared interest to stop the conflict from spreading." Miller tells reporters on Blinken's plane from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi. — AFP
The US Justice Department says a US Navy petty officer pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive military information to a Chinese intelligence officer.
Wenheng Zhao, 26, and another US sailor, Jinchao Wei, were arrested in August on suspicion of spying for China.
Zhao pleaded guilty in a federal court in California to charges of conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and accepting a bribe, the Justice Department says in a statement. — AFP
The US Justice Department says US Navy petty officer pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive military information to a Chinese intelligence officer.
Wenheng Zhao, 26, and another US sailor, Jinchao Wei, were arrested in August on suspicion of spying for China.
Zhao pleaded guilty in a federal court in California to charges of conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and accepting a bribe, the Justice Department says in a statement. — AFP
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accuses Chinese firms of "fuelling" a drug addiction crisis in the United States, as he met with officials in Shanghai on the first leg of a visit to the country.
Schumer is the latest high-level American official to visit China as Washington seeks to ease tensions with Beijing.
He met Saturday with Chen Jining, the ruling Chinese Communist Party's chief official in Shanghai, according to a pool report, stressing the United States "does not want to decouple our economies". — AFP
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