The Biden administration has made it clear for all its allies, be it in East Asia or the whole Indo-Pacific, that they are on their own. The USA under the Biden administration will engage with the Chinese government more and more even if it costs dearly to the long held allies. However, the Asian powers seem to have made up their minds and are not ready to toe the line of new US administration.
As per Reuters, a group of anti-China activists in Japan campaigning for human rights in Tibet and support for ethnic Uighurs, on Thursday, called for the boycott of 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, saying the Games would embolden China’s government in its crackdowns. This comes at a time when the USA is making concessions to the Xi Jinping’s China and cutting the Chinese Communist Party some slack. It is a mirror of sorts to the Democrats and Biden-Harris.
The Beijing Games are due to open in exactly one year but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is coming under pressure from critics of China’s human rights record.
“The IOC foolishly decided on having the winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing (so) we are forced to speak out,” Kalden Obara, president of a group called the Tibetan Community in Japan, told a news conference in Tokyo. Adding, “If China doesn’t stop human rights violations in Tibet and the neighbouring regions, then China should not be allowed to host this 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.”
A coalition of 180 rights groups said in an open letter to various governments on Wednesday that a boycott of the Games would “ensure they are not used to embolden the Chinese government’s appalling rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent”. The fact that Democrats are being preached about Human Rights, the very subject they exclaim to be champions of, is the biggest embarrassment for them.
Biden’s NSA Jake Sullivan had described China as a peer competitor, and an essential US partner. They believe that China is a ‘peer competitor’ with a more formidable economy, more sophisticated diplomacy and more flexible ideology than the Soviet Union ever was.
Beijing has always rejected the use of “Indo-Pacific” and Biden’s decision to make it a closed and secure space will make it even weaker. The terms “secure and prosperous” do not offer a free and open structure but rather a shackled region with closed boundaries and limited participation.
However, as per the same Reuters report, the U.S. adminstration has signalled that it has no plans to bar U.S. athletes from taking part in Beijing 2022. “We’re not currently talking about changing our posture or our plans as it relates to the Beijing Olympics,”
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a news briefing this week. This has further laid bare the real face of Biden administration for which profiteering is the biggest priority and Human Rights is just a sham which is a tool for the same. It can be dismissed if the claims of Human Rights absues contradict the profiteering angle.
The Japanese are showing a mirror to the US administration’s double standards, and it is providing an example of an alternative leaderahip with in cooperation with India and Australia for Indo-Pacific countries against the Chinese overreach.