Amna Nawaz:
As we reported earlier, the Biden administration is not going to ship an official delegation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Administration officers say it is a transfer to protest China’s human rights abuses.
To interrupt down what this implies for U.S.-China relations, I am joined by Victor Cha. He was the director of Asian affairs on the Nationwide Safety Council workers through the George W. Bush administration. He is now on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research and a professor at Georgetown College.
Victor Cha, welcome again to the “NewsHour.” Thanks for making the time.
At this level in already tense U.S.-Chinese language relations, what do you suppose a boycott like this, what do you suppose it is more likely to accomplish?
Victor Cha, Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research: Properly, I believe the accomplishment is to ship a message to China, as they’ve already achieved, that the USA isn’t going to permit China to go unaccountable for the human rights abuses in Hong Kong or in Xinjiang or what they’re doing to particular person athletes.
I do not suppose it’s going to change Chinese language coverage. I do not suppose it’s meant to alter Chinese language coverage. However what it can do is, the USA is main, and perhaps different international locations will comply with. It’s a political boycott, which implies it is not going to have an effect on the athletes, and that is necessary, as a result of I believe the athletes must be allowed to compete, not like what occurred in 1980 with the boycott of the Moscow Olympics by the Carter administration.
However it’s sending a really high-profile message that the USA was going to do one thing about the truth that China is kind of working rampant with regard to human rights abuses in its personal territory and in different elements of the — of its nation.
