Top Chinese officials on Wednesday blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, accusing the California Democrat of pushing “shameless lies and disinformation” while seeking to score political points at the expense of athletes around the world.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the real motivation behind Mrs. Pelosi’s call for a boycott is a fear that, by visiting Beijing for the games, American officials and citizens will see that Western claims of rampant human-rights abuses across China are false.
“China deplores and rejects the attempt by certain U.S. individuals to sling mud at China and sabotage the preparation and holding of the Beijing Winter Olympics by playing the human rights card out of ideological and political prejudice. These people’s remarks are filled with shameless lies and disinformation,” Mr. Zhao told reporters.
“I wonder what makes these U.S. individuals feel they have the ‘moral authority,’ and what gives them the confidence when they are being utterly ignorant?” he said.
While the Chinese regime routinely blasts the U.S., such harsh criticism of an individual American lawmaker is much more rare.
Mrs. Pelosi issued the call for a boycott Tuesday, citing the Chinese government’s human rights abuses against minority Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and elsewhere across the country. The State Department has classified China’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.
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“China broadly criminalizes religious expression and continues to commit crimes against humanity and genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week.
Against that backdrop, Mrs. Pelosi would be unacceptable to send diplomats and other dignitaries to the event.
“For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing while you’re sitting there in your seats really begs the question: What moral authority do you have to speak about human rights any place in the world?” the California Democrat said. “Let’s have a diplomatic boycott if, in fact, this Olympics takes place. Silence on this issue is unacceptable, it enables China’s abuses.”
Other prominent lawmakers are publicly pushing the International Olympics Committee to find a new home for the 2022 winter games.
Chinese officials, however, say Mrs. Pelosi and other critics are using the games for their own political gain.
“We urge the relevant U.S. legislator to stop taking advantage of the Olympic games to seek political manipulation and avoid standing on the opposite side of athletes and winter sports lovers across the world,” Mr. Zhao said.
⦁ Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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