Critical commentary: a call to boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympic games and establish minimum human rights standards for Olympic hosts

In awarding the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to Beijing,1 People’s Republic of China (PRC), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) once again demonstrated a complete lack of concern for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), ignoring the well-being of Tibetans; Hong Kongers; Southern Mongolians; and Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic Muslims. The UDHR is the cornerstone of two binding international treaties that we argue all Olympic and Paralympic hosts should be party to: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The PRC has never ratified the ICCPR and regularly violates the ICESCR. In this commentary, we highlight the numerous human rights violations occurring in the PRC in relation to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, illustrating that the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics not only failed to improve the human rights situation in the PRC, they dramatically worsened the plight of many ethnic groups living under the authoritarian rule of Communist Party of China (CPC).

The IOC has maintained, since the inception of the modern Olympic Games in the late-19th century, that sport should be politically neutral. Nevertheless, as protests over human rights abuses gathered force in the months leading up the 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, then-IOC President Jacques Rogge called on the Chinese government to live up to a “moral engagement” when it came to respecting human rights in their country. Despite Rogge claiming that the protests in 2008 were a “crisis” for the IOC, the organization stood by its decision to award its signature event to Beijing.2 That this was done as much for commercial reasons as sporting ones speaks to the hollowness of the neoliberal promise that economic engagements lead to democratic improvements.

Nevertheless, the IOC’s own constitutional document, the Olympic Charter, insists that the fundamental principles of Olympism (a sort of guiding philosophy of the Olympic Movement) rejects “discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,” in favour of “mutual understanding ... friendship, solidarity and fair play.”3 That the IOC refuses to apply these values means that it has once more awarded the Games to Beijing, allowing the PRC to use the event to “sportwash” their international reputation in the face of the abuses detailed below.

In the PRC, a disproportionate number of human rights abuses are unfolding in the Regional Autonomous Regions and Areas where Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian cultural milieus face forceful and coercive integration. Yet, as legal scholars Maria Lundberg and Yong Zhou explain, “There are clear rules articulated by the Chinese Constitution which seem to provide a strong legal basis for minority nationalities to maintain their group identity and distinctive culture.”4 These rules are now largely ignored. The following article is divided into four subsections, each dealing with human rights abuses against a different group within the PRC’s population. They include: Tibetans; Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic Muslims; Southern Mongolians; and Hong Kongers.

Although our focus in this commentary is not primarily about human rights abuses against the majority Han Chinese population in the PRC, we want to acknowledge that no group, regardless of cultural background, is immune to CPC oppression.5 Han scholars and activists have stood up against CPC policies in the past, only to find themselves imprisoned, without proper legal representation, for exercising their freedoms of speech and expression, often by voicing their support for the very groups discussed in this paper. No one who resists CPC tyranny is safe.

On 2 November 2021, tennis star Peng Shuai reignited debates around the CPC’s human rights record by accusing former PRC Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault on social media. The post was promptly censored, and Peng disappeared from public life, presumably detained by the CPC. The Women›s Tennis Association took a firm stand against the CPC’s refusal to provide convincing evidence of Peng’s freedom, pulling all future events from the PRC.6 The IOC, on the other hand, has accepted the CPC’s dubious assurances that Peng is safe and free, vividly illustrating the organization’s prioritization of profits over human rights.7 The plight of Peng Shuai, plus the ongoing concerns regarding the cultural genocide inflicted upon Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, has prompted diplomatic boycotts by the United States of America, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.8 Through this paper we hope to encourage additional global action by further contextualizing the 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games against the backdrop of human rights, including, but not limited to, the rights to physical integrity, liberty and security of the person, procedural fairness in law, individual liberty, non-discrimination, self-determination, and basic civil liberties.