Britain will not send any official representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympics as part of a growing diplomatic boycott by allies over China’s record of human rights abuses.
The government’s decision was announced by Boris Johnson, who said there would “effectively be a diplomatic boycott” of the Games in February given that no UK ministers or officials will be attending. However he confirmed Team GB athletes would still be able to compete.
The US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have also said they will not send diplomats to the Games because of concerns over the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, the clampdown on democracy and freedoms in Hong Kong and the repression of Tibet.
Johnson’s comments came after the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith urged him to follow the lead of the US by having a full diplomatic boycott.
The prime minister said the government had “no hesitation” in raising concerns over human rights abuses with China, before adding: “There will be effectively a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. No ministers are expected to attend and no officials. What I can tell the house is I don’t think sporting boycotts are sensible and that remains the policy of the government.”
On Wednesday evening Canada added its voice to the boycott. The country’s prime minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the decision had been taken because Canada was “extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese governnment”.
Asked if he was anticipating any blowback from Beijing for snubbing China as it prepares to host the world, Trudeau said “this should not come as a surprise” to the regime. “For months, we have been coordinating and discussing the issue with our allies,” he said.
That message was echoed by the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, who said that not sending diplomats was “the right thing to do” due to human rights concerns and a series of political disputes with China.
However China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, accused Australia of “blindly following” the US, before adding “whether they come or not, nobody cares”.
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, also insisted he was not worried by the growing number of diplomatic boycotts because the most important thing was for athletes to be allowed to compete.
“We have been concerned with the athletes, so we welcome the fact that they can participate and are supported by their national governments,” he said. ”The rest is politics and therefore our political neutrality principle is applied.”
Bach also defended the IOC over criticism for how it has handled contact with the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who alleged last month that she had been sexually assaulted by a senior official in the country’s government.
The IOC has held two video calls with Peng in the past fortnight. However her circumstances remain clouded in doubt and the IOC has also notably refused to make the Chinese government.
“We have achieved what we could reasonably be expected to achieve with these calls,” said Bach. “You have to take care of this human being, and in such a fragile situation Peng Shuai is in, you have to make all the efforts to build trust.”
Bach also insisted the IOC would not be drawn into taking sides between China and the west when it came to politics. “The Games unite the world. If we start to take political sides, one way or the other, we would never get all the 205 or 206 national Olympic committees to the Games.
“And this could be the end of the Olympic Games, as it was the end of the ancient Olympic Games. Because when politics got involved after 1,000 years, when the Roman Emperor intervened for political reasons, it was the end of the Games.”
