Beijing Winter Olympics 2022

8 min readJan 26, 2022

BIPARTISAN ACTION IN CONGRESS
For almost a year, Congressional Republicans including China Task Force Chairman Michael McCaul and the Task Force Members have been working to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) exploitation of the Olympics, while at the same time preparing American athletes for the risks they face at the hands of the CCP and condemning the IOC for their complicity in the CCP’s atrocities. Many of the China Task Force actions have been done in a bipartisan fashion, including:

In June 2021, McCaul was joined by China Task Force Member Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Vice Chairman Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) in introducing a resolution urging the IOC to move the 2022 Winter Games unless the CCP ends its genocide against ethnic and religious minorities in the country.
In December 2021, McCaul’s American Values and Security in International Athletics Act became law as part of the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. This bipartisan legislation will ensure U.S. Olympians are properly informed about human rights abuses and threats to their personal privacy and security ahead of international athletics competitions that take place in communist countries and other countries that abuse human rights.
In December 2021, the House passed H.Res.837, a bipartisan resolution introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (R-VA) and China Task Force Member Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) condemning the IOC for failing to adhere to its own human rights commitments after it enabled the CCP in covering up the disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai.

THE THREAT TO U.S. OLYMPIANS
“Reconsider travel to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws… The PRC government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including by carrying out arbitrary and wrongful detentions and through the use of exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries without due process of law… U.S. citizens traveling or residing in the PRC, including Hong Kong, may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime. U.S. citizens may be subjected to prolonged interrogations and extended detention without due process of law.” — State Department’s Current China Travel Advisory, Threat Level 3 (Reconsider Travel)

The Chinese Communist Party criminalizes free speech and violates the rule of law and due process. This creates a major risk for anyone — including American athletes — exercising their free speech about the CCP’s atrocities.

The CCP is also growing more shameless and aggressive in arbitrarily detaining foreign citizens for its own self-serving purposes. In one of the most egregious recent examples, two completely innocent Canadian men spent more than 1,000 days in arbitrary detention, but they are far from the only examples of foreign citizens unjustly held in China.

Increasing the risk even more, under the oppressive national security law forced onto Hong Kong by the CCP in 2020, anyone who speaks out against the Chinese government could be sentenced to life in prison in China.

The CCP has already begun implementing this Orwellian law as a pretext for silencing dissent, issuing arrest warrants for U.S. citizens who criticize their malign actions.

EDUCATING TEAM USA
When they travel to Beijing, our athletes will face an unprecedented conundrum. The CCP threat to their personal safety and privacy is severe. At the same time, the stain of the CCP’s abhorrent genocide will last into history, and athletes may wish to distance themselves from the CCP’s efforts to propagandize through the Olympics. Athletes will reach their own individual conclusions on the best course of action for themselves, and the United States has a responsibility to ensure they have the resources they need to reach informed conclusions about this challenge.

To meet this responsibility, Task Force Chair McCaul introduced the American Values and Security in International Athletics Act, which was enacted in December 2021. Under this new law, when an international athletic competition like the Olympics takes place in a communist country or other countries that abuse human rights, the State Department is mandated to work with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to prepare Team USA. The Act will ensure American athletes have the opportunity to be informed about the human rights conditions on the ground when they are representing America abroad, and understand the threats they will face to their own personal safety and privacy.

WHITEWASHING GENOCIDE
“I have determined that the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.” — Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo

“We call on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately end genocide and crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.” — Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

No matter what the CCP and their enablers and propaganda outlets try to claim, it’s clear the CCP is committing genocide against religious and ethnic minorities.

Their horrific treatment is the definition of a genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — of which China is a signatory:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…
• Chairman Xi Jinping told CCP party leaders to “be as harsh as them and show absolutely no mercy” with regards to the Uyghurs.
• The CCP has shown a clear intent to destroy the Uyghurs’ culture, language, and even their existence. CCP officials have portrayed Uyghurs as “malignant tumors,” compared their faith to a “communicable plague,” and said “you can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one-by-one; you need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”

“…as such:
( a ) Killing members of the group;
• According to detainees’ stories in news reports, newborn Uyghur babies have been murdered.
• In addition, according to detainees, Uyghurs have been disappeared never to be seen again or murdered.

“( b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• According to former detainees, treatment and conditions in the concentration camps include “factory labor, crowded and unsanitary conditions, food deprivation, beatings, and sexual abuse.”
• The CCP has destroyed more than 100 Uyghur cemeteries and thousands of religious sites.

“ ( c ) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• More than one million Han Chinese CCP officials have been forcibly inserted into Uyghur households under the CCP’s “Pair Up and Become Family” program. According to Radio Free Asia, “Male Han Chinese ‘relatives’ assigned to monitor the homes of Uyghur families… regularly sleep in the same beds as the wives of men detained in the region’s internment camps, according to sources who have overseen the forced stayovers.”

“( d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Uyghur women are being forcibly sterilized and subject to forced abortions.
• Birth rates in Uyghur majority regions dropped 60% between 2015 to 2018.
• Birth rates in Xinjiang dropped 24% in 2019 alone, compared to 4.2% nationwide.

“(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
• Uyghur children are forcibly removed from their parents and transferred to orphanages.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Below are some of the actions taken and statements made regarding the Genocide Games, the CCP’s human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and their brutal crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong.

The China Task Force Report (September 2020)
China Regional Snapshot: Exposing the CCP’s Global Malign Influence (September 2020)

Olympics
June 7, 2021 McCaul, Meeks, Gallagher, Malinowski Lead International Effort Urging Alternative Locations for 2022 Beijing Olympics

February 23, 2021 McCaul Will Introduce Bill to Bring Transparency to Olympics

Human Rights Violations
December 10, 2021 McCaul Speaks on Passage of Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

November 23, 2021 McCaul, HFAC Republicans to Pelosi: “Stop Delaying Floor Consideration of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” (Letter)

November 14, 2021 McCaul Urges Biden to Address CCP’s Malign Behavior and Human Rights Violations Ahead of Meeting with Chairman Xi

July 28, 2021 HFAC Republicans Call on Speaker Pelosi to Bring Bipartisan Uyghur Genocide Resolution to the Floor Before August Break

May 12, 2021 McCaul Warns Kerry CCP Human Rights Abuses Cannot be Compartmentalized for Climate Deal

May 6, 2021 McCaul on the CCP’s Genocide Against Uyghurs: “This Genocide is the Moral Test of Our Time”

April 14, 2021 McCaul, Meeks Introduce Resolution Condemning Uyghur Genocide in the People’s Republic of China

March 17, 2021 McCaul: “A Climate Deal That Accepts Slave Labor Is Unacceptable”

February 12, 2021 McCaul Disputes The Economist’s Claim There Is No Genocide Against Uyghurs