Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Beijing Olympics has got its first world leader guest. Russian president Vladimir Putin has agreed to attend 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. This makes him one of the first major world leaders to indicate his attendance.
His remarks came in a video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said he looked forward to a get-together. The significant of Putin’s nod could be understood with the fact that growing number of countries have joined a diplomatic boycott of the games. This is due to alleged human rights abuses in China, which Beijing denies.
In November third week US President Joe Biden said that he is weighing a US diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. “That is something we are considering,” he told ahead of talks with Mexico and Canada.
A diplomatic boycott mean that no US officials attend the games. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the US have called for a diplomatic boycott as a means to protest against Chinese human rights abuses.
“I would like to point out that we always support each other when it comes to international sports cooperation, including our position against attempts to politicise sports and the Olympic movement,” said Putin.
China’s suppression of political freedoms in Hong Kong and concerns for Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who was not seen in public for weeks after she accused a top government official of sexual assault in November are also among the diplomatic issues that have arisen.
The US, UK and Australia and Canada have said their high-level officials will not be attending the winter Games, which will take place in February, as a result. However, athletes from these countries will still be in attendance. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also said he had no plans to attend the Games at the moment.
“The United States, Britain and Australia have used the Olympics platform for political manipulation,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, said.
