Much like Olympic athletes who sacrifice nearly everything to achieve their athletic goals, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is ready to sacrifice anything to keep up appearances, no matter how far from reality their cover-up goes. Sadly, it seems the CCP has quite a few friends helping them whitewash their crimes against humanity as the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing carry on despite Chinese human rights abuses.
Who is helping the world turn a blind eye to these abuses? The media, the advertisers, the countries, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) all have blood on their hands when it comes to supporting the CCP for these Winter Olympic Games.
Silencing criticism on behalf of the CCP
For months, activists and world leaders have warned against China’s increasingly authoritarian behavior toward its own citizens, its anti-democracy campaign in Hong Kong, its military threats against Taiwan, and its genocide against the Uyghur Muslims whom they have sent to concentration camps.
But none of that matters to the IOC, which was more than happy to silence criticism on behalf of the CCP whenever needed – such as when tennis champion Peng Shuai spoke out regarding sexual assault by her coach and then mysteriously disappeared.
The IOC slithered out from under a rock to report that they had spoken to her and all was well. Around the same time, Shuai “clarified” that her initial comments were “misunderstood.”
Of course, collaborating with genocidal regimes is not new for the IOC. They famously enabled the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany in 1936, allowing the event intended as a display of unity and sport to become a propaganda machine for the Nazi regime.
Hitler even used the games to display a Jewish athlete on the German team, Helene Mayer, who was only permitted to compete because of international pressure leading up to the games.
Meticulously planned Chinese propaganda
China, as though they are following in Hitler’s footsteps, also opened the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing last week with an athlete of Uyghur descent lighting the torch in the opening ceremonies – signaling to a largely sleepy and indifferent world that the CCP couldn’t possibly be genocidal maniacs committing ethnic cleansing and censoring any form of free speech.
Then came the opening ceremonies, a showpiece of meticulously planned Chinese propaganda, broadcast around the world as unconscious Western news sources glowingly praised the ornate performances as if nothing were wrong.
While some countries like India refused to air the opening and closing ceremonies in a boycott of China’s human rights violations and tendency to use sport for political propaganda, the US’s broadcaster NBC seemed to have no problem broadcasting the ceremonies, even emphasizing how China has “much support around the world,” despite a US diplomatic boycott of the games.
Even with this cowardly cover-up of the CCP’s crimes against humanity by some of the press, journalists both foreign and domestic remain a CCP target, even during the Olympic Games. Last week a Dutch journalist was carried away by CCP security while reporting on the air at the Olympic Games.
Press freedom in China has continued to deteriorate in the lead-up to the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, with the CCP targeting journalists with threats and intimidation including online harassment, cyber hacking, physical assaults and visa denials.
A "bubble" that has nothing to do with COVID-19
For the Winter Olympic Games specifically, it gets worse. China has developed an Olympic village that is literally a closed network where press and athletes are forbidden from leaving or entering, supposedly due to COVID-19 restrictions.
But there are a range of special “security” measures occurring within the Olympic “bubble” that go far beyond ordinary COVID-19 measures, and will certainly be used for the CCP’s massive espionage projects.
For example, all athletes must download a state-run app that tracks health and travel information. There is also a special internet intended to be open with platforms ordinarily blocked for Chinese citizens – unquestionably these will also be heavily monitored.
Even more alarming, some of the technology companies which are running these closed networks are blacklisted by the US for espionage, or involvement in the Uyghur genocide, such as China Unicom.
Numerous countries, including the US and UK, have warned their athletes not to bring their primary mobile devices because of the vast Chinese espionage efforts.
Additionally, the Olympics app itself has a list (albeit inactive at present time) of “illegal words” that can be censored, which is the same method China uses ordinarily for their mass internet censorship. The IOC, of course, dismissed security concerns over this app.
THE CHINESE efforts to save face by covering up their crimes and failures aren’t really new either. After all, China famously covered up the literal starvation of tens of millions in order to save face for communist dictator Mao Zedong.
Similarly, the IOC has a long and rich history of looking the other way in the face of very obvious crimes against humanity, such as what occurred in 1936 in Nazi Germany.
But while the IOC is continuing to play China’s games, western countries, and broadcasters, should play no part in it. The CCP should be isolated for the pariah that it is, in every way it can be.
While a diplomatic boycott by most democratic countries is a start, it is a weak response and far from sufficient for holding accountable a genocidal regime committing mass human rights atrocities. A cursory glance at the list of countries that are not boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympic Games should tell you everything you need to know, from Russia to Pakistan to Qatar, not to mention multiple UN officials in attendance.
It isn’t only a stain on the IOC that the Winter Olympics in Beijing are now taking place. It’s a stain on humanity.
The writer is CEO of Social Lite Creative LLC.