The history of the Olympic Games shows both the struggle by China and the Global South to be accepted by the U.S. and other imperialist nations, as well as alternative models to it. In the early 1990s, barely a decade after rejoining the Olympic movement, Beijing launched a bid to host the 2000 Games. Unfortunately by then, U.S. policy had begun to[Read More...]
Only through the lens of history can we understand why China fought so hard for a place in the Olympics on its own terms: to heal the scars of both exploitative Western colonialism and civil war. Much has been made of the “diplomatic boycott” by the United States and its allies of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. But what much of the[Read More...]
Which human rights matter enough to put politics above sports? For decades, the United States and its European allies have gotten to decide the answer at their convenience. On February 4, the 2022 Winter Olympics are set to open in Beijing. With this, the Chinese capital will become the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games.[Read More...]
The diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games may go down in history as the official start of the cold war between the US, a handful of its allies and China. The American strategy, however, of using boycotts to pressure Beijing in the name of ‘human rights’, may prove costly in the future. On December 6, Washington[Read More...]
Making moral statements in the blood and gristle of international relations can often come across as feeble. In doing so, the maker serves the worst of all worlds: to reveal a false sense of assurance that something was done while serving no actual purpose other than to provoke. Anger, and impotence, follow. The Biden administration is proving to be particularly[Read More...]
The UK government is considering boycotting China’s winter Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. The British foreign office cites “international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang.” “It is the longstanding policy of the government that the determination of whether genocide has taken place should be made by a competent court with[Read More...]
