Decades after the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the United States of America is planning a boycott of the Winter Olympics to be held in Beijing next year. This was announced by the spokesman for the State Department Ned Price: “It is something we certainly want to discuss” with the allies. “We believe that a coordinated approach would not only be in our interest, but also in the interest of our allies and partners,” he said without disclosing the position of the administration on the matter. Price later clarified in a tweet: “As I said, we have no announcement to make about the Beijing Olympics. 2022 is still a long way off, but we will continue to consult closely with our allies and partners to define our common concerns and establish our common approach to the Chinese Communist Party. “
Several groups of Republican activists and politicians recently stepped up their calls for a US boycott of the Beijing Olympics. They are based in part on complaints from NGOs and countries accusing China of persecuting Uighur Muslims, even with imprisonment in internment camps where members of the minority are subjected, according to the testimonies of survivors, to various abuses. The administration of President Joe Biden he has never ruled out the possibility of a boycott of the Olympic Games, without announcing a firm policy. The White House spokesperson Jen Psaki in February he said the administration would consult with the US Olympic committee on the matter. For its part, Beijing denounces the planned boycott e rejects any accusation of genocide against Uyghurs, presenting the alleged internment camps as “vocational training centers”. The United States led a boycott in the 1980s Moscow Olympics after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the Soviet bloc responded four years later with a boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics.