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Ski jumping facility for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing
Photo: WANG ZHAO / AFP
Great Britain, Australia and Canada are also taking part in the diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing (February 4 to 20) and are not sending any government representatives to China.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday.
The countries are thus joining the US diplomatic boycott, as New Zealand had previously done.
However, the British, Australian and Canadian athletes can continue to participate.
"There will indeed be a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics," Johnson said in Parliament's weekly Question Time.
The 57-year-old emphasized that a sporting boycott was "not the policy" of his government.
Trudeau, whose government boycotted the UK and Australia five hours, spoke of "deep concern" about the Chinese government's human rights violations.
Relations between Australia and China are strained over a number of issues. Among other things, Morrison criticized the human rights situation in the Middle Kingdom and the frozen contacts at ministerial level. "Australia is not going to abandon its strong position in advocating Australia's interests, and of course it comes as no surprise that we are not going to send Australian officials to these games," said Morrison.
China reacted with incomprehension.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Canberra, Australia's capital, said the decision "contradicts Canberra's publicly expressed expectation of improving relations between China and Australia."
When the US government headed by President Joe Biden announced its diplomatic boycott on Monday, the Chinese State Department threatened that the US would "pay the price for its wrongdoing."
Reports of serious human rights violations in western China's Xinjiang Province have long fueled diplomatic tensions with Beijing.
The new Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted cautiously to demands from the USA for a political boycott of the Olympic Winter Games in China.
"This is a debate that started very excitedly," said the SPD politician on ZDF on Wednesday.
This must be carefully advised internationally.
"Anyway, I don't think there's any reason to rush into any course of action here," he added.
"Rational action is very, very decisive for peace and security." Scholz emphasized that the Olympic idea was to come together.
as / sid / Reuters