By U.S. Senator Deb Fischer
**Click here to download audio of this week’s column**
The 2022 Winter Olympics are finally underway. Each of the American athletes competing this year is the best in their event. Many have dedicated their entire lives to their sports, hoping to one day have this chance to represent the United States in the Olympic Games.
I always enjoy this opportunity to cheer on our Olympians. They have earned this opportunity to compete against other athletes from around the world.
But make no mistake: Beijing 2022 is no ordinary Olympics.
A four-hour flight from where the Games are being held, China has imprisoned more than a million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps. The same government that is hosting the 2022 Olympics is putting these innocent people in labor camps and subjecting them to physical and psychological torture – acts that rise to the level of genocide, according to both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Last November, one of China’s most famous athletes, Peng Shuai, posted on social media that one of the Chinese Communist Party’s highest-ranking politicians had sexually assaulted her. This official had been the face of China’s successful efforts to land the 2022 Olympics, even meeting with the president of the International Olympic Committee at least once.
Less than 20 minutes later, her post had been scrubbed from existence. The Communist Party restricted any mention of her name across the entire Chinese internet. For a while, they even banned discussion of hundreds of other keywords, like “tennis.” Ms. Peng disappeared from the public eye for months, and the only appearances she has been allowed to make since have been scripted and supervised by the government.
This is how China treats its own people, so I think it’s fair to ask: What kind of risks and political environment are the thousands of athletes facing as they participate in the Olympic Games?
To protest China’s human rights record, the U.S. instituted a diplomatic boycott, and American officials won’t be present for the Games. Neither will officials representing many of our allies, like Canada and the United Kingdom.
That’s the right decision. For its part, the International Olympic Committee has made it clear that China’s money is worth more to them than athletes’ rights. Despite years of planning, the Committee chose not to adopt any rules to protect the human rights of Olympians while they are in China. Instead, competitors will be required to follow local laws limiting free expression, privacy, and other basic freedoms.
Before they ever set foot in China, athletes and journalists were required to download an intrusive smartphone app, supposedly to track COVID-19 infections. But experts say China could exploit flaws in the app’s design to spy on athletes in other ways, both during the Olympics and long after the Games are over. The app also contains a list of more than 400 “illegal words” the Communist Party could use to censor athletes’ conversations while they are in Beijing.
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee went as far as to tell American athletes to “assume that every device and every communication, transaction, and online activity will be monitored.” Many other nations have issued similar warnings about China’s heavy-handed surveillance.
The International Olympic Committee chose to ignore China’s shameless human rights abuses. But they didn’t have to. They could have required China to respect the basic liberties athletes enjoy in the United States and other Western countries. Even better, they could have decided not to hold the Olympics in an authoritarian country like China at all.
Next time, the Committee should pick any of the dozens of democracies around the world to host the Olympics.
America’s more than 200 athletes have earned their places on Team USA with years of hard work and sacrifice. I wish them the best in the coming weeks – and I pray they stay safe while they are away from home.
Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.
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