In the annals of diplomacy, the White House official confirmation of a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing might qualify at best as a disc thrower being hit by a boomerang.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and widely cross-posted
Realpolitik minds struggle to find a point in this gratuitous provocation, intervening less than two months before the start of the show, on February 4, 2022 at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing.
According to White House reasoning, “the Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”
To start with, no one among the Joe Biden handlers in the administration or any other officials were invited in the first place. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, remarked the US was “hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ without even being invited to the Games”.
Zhao also stressed the Games are not “a stage for political posturing”, and added the “blatant political provocation” constitutes “a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people.” He left hanging in the air the possibility of “resolute countermeasures”.
What that implies is the recent Xi-Biden virtual summit also melt in the air when it comes to promoting a more diplomatic entente cordiale. Predictably, Washington politicians who prevailed are the ones obsessed on demonizing Beijing using the perennial human rights pretext.
Top billing goes to Polish-American Democrat Senator Tom Malinowski from New Jersey, the vice-chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Malinowski is not strange to dodgy dealings. On October 21, 2021, the House Committee on Ethics issued a report confirming he had failed to properly disclose his stock trades since early 2020, as he bought or sold as much as $1 million of stock in medical and tech companies that had a stake in the response to Covid-19. The trades were actually just one aspect of a stock buying and selling spree worth as much as $3.2 million.
All throughout 2021, with multiple ethics complaints and an ethics investigation piling up, Malinowski was forced to direct his financial advisor to cease with stock market shenanigans, and announced he set up a blind trust for his assets.
Yet Malinowski’s main line of business is actually China demonization.
In June, Malinowski, alongside Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Michael McCaul (R-TX) was the key articulator of a resolution urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to move the 2022 Games “away from Beijing” unless the PRC government ended “ongoing crimes against the Uyghur people”. The Americans were supported by legislators in nine European nations, plus the European Parliament.
At the time, Malinowski said, “there’s no such thing as non-political games – dictatorships like China host the Olympics to validate their standing…even as they continue to commit crimes against their people.”
Malinowski is very close to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – who is fervently pro-boycott. So this directive comes from the top of the Democrat leadership: the White House imprimatur was just a formality.
The “genocide” perpetrator
Considering the rolling color revolution in Hong Kong ended up as a total failure, human rights in Xinjiang remains a predictable pretext/target – on a par with the imminent “invasion” of Taiwan.
Arguably the best-contextualized exposition of the real situation in Xinjiang is here. The “genocide” fallacy has been completely debunked by thorough independent analysis, as in here and here. The White House essentially regurgitates the “analysis” of a far-right religious nut first endorsed by Mike “we cheat, we lie, we steal” Pompeo. Talk about continuity of government.
During the Cold War, the Olympics did become hostage to diplomatic boycotts. In 1980, the US under then-president Jimmy Carter snubbed the Moscow Olympics along with other 64 nations in protest for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR for its part, alongside the Iron Curtain, boycotted the 1984 games in Los Angeles.
What happens now falls under the seal of Cold War 2.0 and the demonization of China across the spectrum, mostly via Hybrid War tactics.
Xinjiang is a prime target not because of the Uyghurs, but because it is the strategic connector between western China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridors across Central Asia, South Asia, and West Asia all the way to Europe. BRI – which is the centerpiece of Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future – is an absolute anathema in Washington.
The fact that the US has been staging countless, costly, devastating declinations of humanitarian imperialism in Muslim lands, directly and indirectly, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and beyond, but now, suddenly, is in tears about the fate of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, speaks for itself.
“Rights” groups barely disguised as CIA propaganda fronts have predictably been shrieking non-stop, urging the “international community” – an euphemism for NATOstan – to boycott the Beijing Olympics. These are irrelevant. Governments are a more serious matter.
Twenty nations refused to sign the Olympic Truce with China. This tradition, originating in Ancient Greece, makes sure that political upheaval does not interfere with sport. The – Western – justification for yet another provocation: we’re “sending a message” to Beijing.
In the UK, Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg remarked recently that “no tickets have been booked” for the Olympics. The Foreign Office said earlier this week, “no decisions have yet been made” about sending officials to Beijing.
France will “coordinate” with other EU members, although the Elysée made a point that ‘when we are worried about human rights, we tell the Chinese…We adopted sanctions on Xinjiang last March.” That was a reference to the US, UK, EU, Canada, and a few other allies sanctioning some Chinese officials for the glaring fake news the White House officially describes as “genocide”.
So any adherence to the White House directive this coming February will come essentially from NATOstan members and of course AUKUS. In contrast, across Asia and the Global South, no one could be bothered. South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Choi Yong-sam, for instance, stressed that South Korea supports the Olympics.
President Putin for his part accepted a personal invitation from Xi Jinping, and he will be at the inauguration.
Extremely strict Covid-19 control measures will be enforced during the Olympics, so for the organizers, a smaller number of Western official guests flying in, in terms of cost, is actually a benefit.
So in the end what’s left of this fit of hysteria? Elon Musk may have nailed it this week at a CEO Council Summit when he remarked that China’s economy could soon be two or three times the size of the US economy. That hurts. And there’s no way any boycott will solve it.
The Financial Empire has exploited Olympics to harass its adversaries.
Nations would do better by learning from the history and preparing themselves for challenges from the Empire, that exploits every event to harass and damage its adversaries reputation. During the Soviet Union Cold War, 66 countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics entirely, led by the U$A. The Empire harassed China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch relay, started a crisis in Georgia (08.08.08) and mocked China’s ceremonies. No surprise now. The U$A has been joined by Australia, Canada,… (Five Eyes). Who is next?
Let’s see how China and its people will respond. Are China’s people still drinking coffee at Starbucks, buying iPhones, investing in Empire’s banks,… ? This is a test of China’s unity. China’s officials might boycott attending climate change meetings in Washington or any discussions on other topics that the Empire wants to exploit. Most likely China’s response will come after the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Let’s see if “JPMorgan will outlast China’s Communist Party.” The Empire is really testing China’s patience. The key elements of China’s strikes have been: strategic, surprise & significant.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/582973-jamie-dimon-apologizes-for-saying-jpmorgan-will-outlast-chinas-communist-party
Vladimir Putin was invited to the Beijing Winter Olympics, and has accepted. Joe Biden has not been invited. Isn’t that interesting?
I would call it appropriate.
Are China’s people still drinking coffee at Starbucks, buying iPhones, investing in Empire’s banks, …?
What would really hurt is if China boycotted Boeing’s airplanes. That would be a trillion-dollar-plus hit. And the US would have no right to complain: with Huawei, Trump established the precedent that a country can apply sanctions to an individual company.
Cyril, good point. Another way, China can retaliate significantly is by asking for its goods and services to be paid in Renminbis. This will complete the De-Dollarization and burst Empire’s bubbles. SWIFT’s significance will drop significantly. China & Russia might want to coordinate this together, and call the Empire’s bluff. Russia can demand for its natural resources to be paid in Rubles. Nations will start becoming sovereign!
China can and will retaliate in multiple ways after the Winter Olympics. The Empire is trying to gain an advantage before that starts. It wants to tarnish China’s reputation and prevent its economic growth.
The day gdp per capita is $70,000 in China (2050?) its total gdp per year will be $100 Trillion and by the time it reaches that level the total accumulative opportunity will be more than $1,000+ Trillion (Quadrillion). The Empire formed a Quad to prevent that from happening. If the U$A were to compete economically then we need a gdp per capita of $300,000 by 2050. This (economics) is the real Olympics of the 21st Century. The natural law of large numbers and time are on China’s side.
By abandoning such basic historical norms such as no politics interfering with sports, which started with the Greeks, and snubbing the Magna Carta principle of Habeas Corpus, it’s plain to see that US leaders are the most reactionary and ruthless people in 2500 years.
These were among the bases of our Western civilisation. Apparently, Washington no longer cares to be perceived as civilised. Thanks for noticing, the American media never will.
@Subhuti37
Just another trait of declining civilisation.
“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” — Oscar Wilde, 1882.
I suppose it would be too childish and not within diplomatic norms but i have a dream:
Sitting in the seats where AUKUS diplomats might be i suggest a rplacement
USA: A tableau, Sleepy Jo (asleep), A US landowner holding a chain with a slave, a policeman standing on the neck of a black man and a US border guard firing at a wannabe immigrant in Mexico.
UK: a Bojo look alike dressed as a clown. Several imperialists in the flag, one forcing opium onto a Chinese peasant and some in topees shooting indians or keeping Indian servants.
Australia: Just a couple of dogs. one a poodle and another a pit bull. A couple of oppressed Aboriginals also
America and its western poodles hate the Chinese. And they hate moslems.
They bomb the s*** out of one moslem country after another.
They hate the Chinese and they hate the moslems.
But they love Chinese moslems.
Of course they love Chinese Muslims. They are useful. I agree with all of the comments here and would like to point out that whilst the obvious target is China (among other countries) the real hidden target of this relentless propaganda madness is the captive population of the 5 eyes countries themselves. The propaganda madness is being driven by a hatred and fear of the capitalists for their own people. The common people of the West are the real target. It is an updated variant of the long understood capitalist propaganda war against the natural anti capitalist instincts of the common masses. The propaganda is an ideological construct of capitalist ego mania.
They are truly insane and it is a collective insanity that can only be overcome by the collapse of the ego maniacal construct of capitalist ideology. What further drives these wolves howling at the full moon is their terrifying realization that they are being overwhelmed by a Communist super power. They are so terrified and the more so for the realization of their helplessness.
Snow Leopard, “The propaganda madness is being driven by” the Private Money Imperialist Oligarchy.
The Private Money Imperialist Oligarchy (Global Financial Syndicate) wants to capture and enslave humanity, control world and even industrial capitalists through their financial capitalists. The Empire didn’t care about China’s communism as it doesn’t care about Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Kuwait,… as the latter are obedient vassals (petrodollars). When a nation challenges the Empire then it uses everything (governance, religion, human rights,…) to capture that nation. Have we seen democracy in Kuwait? What happened to Empire’s statement that Kuwait will be a democracy? The Empire keeps monarchy alive as long as they serve it. It likes constitutional monarchy of vassals.
Americans have been enslaved by the Enslavement Plan summarized below. Agree, all Five eyes countries are vassals. China creates sovereign money and invest in its people, infrastructure and real economic growth vs speculation. The Private Money Imperialist Oligarchy wants to control humanity’s oxygen (money), blood (energy), arteries (supply chains), parts (corporations)…
Whoever controls the money supply, controls the nation & world. Regimes are only Illusions. If your nation controls its money supply & is trading in its national currency then it is sovereign and you have a government. If not, then it is a suzerain state administered by your regime. Are you living in a sovereign nation or suzerain state?
“Democracy” is a temporary phase of history which allows the Global Financial Syndicate to take control from the earlier generation of dominant sovereign players: the monarchies. The fact is that most democracies are a suzerainty externally and an Animal Farm internally.
“The true equation is ‘democracy’ = government by world financiers.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien
We Americans would rather see America as a sovereign nation where our people are happy, economic inequality eliminated and everyone feeling economically secured. America’s real strength is its people and ingenuity. Rather than competing on gdp numbers, let’s compete on whose citizens are happiest. Our elites have been corrupted, captured and at the service of Sauron and Saruman.
Most people are subjects of the Financial Empire and controlled by the following Enslavement plan:
“We create all money out of thin air through your Central-Private banking system and lend it to you and your government & businesses, then you pay us interest on that money forever. We own your traitorous puppet politicians because they depend on us for campaign funds. We stage false flags all over the world in order to drag you into totally unnecessary wars based on lies, so you’ll have to blow huge percentage of your money and resources with the defense contractors we own, so you can fight our enemies for us and steal resources on our behalf. And finally, we control your education system and own your media outlets in order to keep you totally in the dark, as we systematically loot and destroy your country, en route to your ultimate enslavement. Those are the elements of our plan. Any questions?”
Are you living in a wealth or debt generation system? Are you free or monetarily enslaved? If the latter, what is your plan to achieve freedom & build a better world? This is humanity’s Olympics of the 21st Century. All need to participate! Want a gold medal?
https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2019/no-8-2-april-2019/from-currency-war-to-military-war.html
Max; Well stated. I agree with everything you wrote. I will emphasize however that the Chinese Communist party’s enlightened understanding of modern political economy gives that nation the integrity it needs to enable it to stand clear of the enslavement that so horribly afflicts practically everywhere else. They know how to maintain their sovereignty and this does mightily distress what I call the Western capitalist ruling class. You phrase it “the private money imperialist oligarchy.” Slightly different ways of saying exactly the same thing as far as I can see. For myself I prefer the Marxist nomenclature as I like its solid historical roots in our culture and it provides a deep foundation of analysis, for those who choose to avail themselves off it. But to each his own style of speaking the truth.
I enjoy following your posts steadily now.
Thank you for this inside view I’m sorry that our government here in Canada has not balls to stand up to our southern borders government. A real strong and free Canadian government would not boycott the Winter Olympic in China, but we have some very woke people in the government and opposition here in Canada.
No real leader in any of the parties.
walter, ms freeland is trudeau’s keeper, sorta like cheney to bush. we’re nazis now…that’s why canada is in syria, the ukraine, why we supply weapons to kill houthis in yemen. we work for the u$rael, & no we didn’t vote for this change. if we’d had a discussion, people would’ve seen it’s better for canada to become part of the bri, instead our nazi rulers are giving our resources to their rulers, along with control of our arctic waters.
The US government ought to be awarded honorary gold medals in hypocrisy, mass murder, genocide, crimes against humanity, destruction of the environment, squandering of natural resources, and speaking with forked tongue* by the principled rump Olympics Committee that refuses to bow and scrape to the self-appointed Hegemon of All Things. Silvers to Team NATO and special bronzes to the demented Big Guy.
*Which American government officials so widely use that it ought to be considered a unique language on earth.
My Chinese friends tell me that in China the response to the boycotts is …… yawn
None of those nations undertaking the diplomatic “boycott” so much as mildly criticised the US for human rights abuses and torture of Muslims like at Abu Ghraib.
Of course none of these ultra-hypocrites were invited to the Olympics anyway.
If hypocrisy was an Olympic event, the US could always send a team from the cages of children on the Texas-Mexican border.. some of them qualified by swimming the Rio Grande…
Maybe US is afraid that organizers would follow strict anti-doping measures?
Two of Pepe’s truth nuggets of hard realism :
” The fact that the US has been staging countless, costly, devastating declinations of humanitarian imperialism in Muslim lands, directly and indirectly, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and beyond, but now, suddenly, is in tears about the fate of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, speaks for itself.
…
Elon Musk may have nailed it this week at a CEO Council Summit when he remarked that China’s economy could soon be two or three times the size of the US economy. ”
_________
Under the unreality of their financial shenanigans Western economies are bound to crash soon and their GDP figures will be forced back to the reality of their factual economic activities. Consequence : the value of their GDP, at the new exchange rates of internationally accepted currencies, will necessarily have fallen by half in comparison with the Chinese economy…
In the meantime China will be contributing 50 to 60% of the world’s electric car market !!! And it will also be well on its way to dominate the chips’ industry by having leapfrogged the Western silicon road… Ever heard of graphene and photonics ? This is not science fiction. It is all happening right now in front of our noses. Even David Goldman at Asia Times is slowly admitting that the West is living in a mirage !
After such a re-adjustment the Chinese economy will inevitably appear to be two or three times the size of the US economy !! And then we’ll assist at the spectacle of Geopolitical analysts running for new narratives…
Ioadan; Here we are again! Following on from your logic it seems to me that Karl Marx’s classical prescription for socialist revolution in the West is about to reveal itself as correct. For a long time people have tried to denigrate Marx by saying his formula has failed to materialize. All that was really needed was a little more time, patience and the establishment of the right cultural preconditions. That traditional Marxian formula being “the final material impoverishment of the (Western) proletariat. as an unavoidable consequence of the innate logic of capitalism ” According to your scenario this cannot be avoided now.
I find your final sentence delightfully intriguing and suggestive; “and then we’ll assist at the spectacle of Geopolitical analysts running for new narratives.” Clearly you are holding the best of your wisdom in reserve for a fast approaching time of richer openings. You mirror me nicely.
Fraternal regards
Snow Leopard
Tom Malinowski is a Representative, not a Senator. It’s one of Pepe’s few mistakes. The Constitution gives the making of foreign policy exclusively to the Senate, and none at all to the House, nor even to the President. He is supposed to only carry out the directives of the Senate. Yes, it has been a long time since the Constitution was followed, but it’s a further erosion of American democracy to allow the lightweights in the House have any say in foreign policy. The House is supposed to fund (or not fund) policies, as they see fit – and that is their only task.
This article is classic Escobar! So from Pepe we learn that the Almighty US Nation wasn’t even invited to come. :)
Then he goes on to nail it:
“Xinjiang is a prime target not because of the Uyghurs, but because it is the strategic connector between western China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridors across Central Asia, South Asia, and West Asia all the way to Europe. BRI – which is the centerpiece of Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future – is an absolute anathema in Washington”
The ultimate irony of it all is that the US Moneyed Interests purposely off-shored millions of well paid labor jobs starting in the late 1970s up to the 1990s. No labor costs, no longer paying medical costs for labor, it saved these corporations Billions of $$s.
We all know what happened afterwards. China made a bad joke and turned it into a great way to “grow a nation” into a productive Empire!
Here in (Canada) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of USA Inc., our PM and the whole parliament, currently pretending to grieve for the tens of thousands of native children tortured and killed in Canada’s very real Residential Schools genocide, took time out for some sanctimonious bleating about China’s alleged mistreatment of Muslims. No doubt Trudeau, who loves playing Mr. Dressup, will don a turban and blackface in feigned sympathy with said Uyghers. Oh, wait, he already did that at least twice.
For a country so heavily involved in bombing and shooting Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya you might think Canada would find a less transparently hypocritical way to antagonize China while sucking up to Uncle Sam. Like maybe kidnapping a leading Chinese business executive. Oh, wait; been there and done that too . . .
The olympics will be better without the U.$. and it’s vassals. No western reporters whining about the accommodations should be welcome. No CIA assets slipping in under the guise of media reporting. No one needs the U.$. and their rules base order anymore. When the vassals figure that out, the world will be more free.