China and the Olympics: Time for a human rights game plan

As I write, there are 340 days until the flame is set to be lit in Beijing, opening the 2022 Winter Olympics and the Paralympics after that.

We can be absolutely certain that every single one of those 340 days will share one grim reality.

Each day, grave human rights violations will suffocate freedom in Hong Kong; brutalize Tibetan, Falun Gong, pro-democracy and other prisoners held because of who they are or what they believe; and jeopardize the very survival of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities whose plight is increasingly called out as a genocide.

Every day the rest of the world will espouse dismay, lament the inability to stop it, regret that it continues, pretend it is not happening, assert it is not their business, or enthusiastically support the Chinse government.

And each of those days it will continue.

Take just the past week.

With the latest round of more than forty arrests, all of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists are either locked up or have fled the country. Across party lines, 266 members of Canada’s House of Commons voted unanimously (with Cabinet ministers abstaining and some members absent) to decry China’s campaign against the Uyghur people and other Muslim minorities as a genocide. After being held incommunicado for ten days, detained activist and law school lecturer Xu Zhiyong met his lawyer via a video call and told him he has been tortured.

And of course, every day this week the worry for unjustly imprisoned Canadians, including Huseyin Celil, Sun Qian, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and for four Canadians currently facing the possibility of execution in China, has been top of mind.

The deepening of the Beijing government’s contempt for human rights is matched only by the inability and unwillingness of the rest of the world to do something forceful and meaningful about it.

No surprise, therefore, there is growing debate about the propriety of holding the Olympics in a country responsible for a human rights crisis of this magnitude.

Immediately there is predictable pushback to such a suggestion. Most commonly we hear indignation that a boycott inappropriately politicizes the Olympics. Others insist it would be ineffective, as most countries are unlikely to keep their athletes at home. Just look at past unsuccessful boycotts.  And there is understandable concern about what this means for athletes who have worked so hard toward this day, given that it may not be possible to find a feasible alternate venue on short notice.

Personal disclaimer here. I have been an Olympics junkie since my teenage years. Our family television was on the fritz in 1976 and I breathlessly followed the Montreal Olympics sprawled on the living room floor, ears glued to the radio.  Over the years I regularly played out Olympic scenarios in my mind while running high school cross country races or schussing down ski runs (and won countless gold medals for Canada along the way).

But I would be the first to scoff at the suggestion that a human rights-inspired boycott (or other Olympics-focused measures) is inappropriate politicization of an event that is somehow free of politics.

First, everything about the Games is infused with politics: patriotism, rivalries, international stature, sanitized national images and more.

But more importantly, it is a short-sighted, disingenuous cop out to complain that concern for human rights and action to back that up is political. Let us not forget that these are universal obligations binding on China, and all nations.

Furthermore, the Olympic Charter affirms as one of its own Fundamental Principles that: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” 

Standing up for universal human rights is not politicizing the Olympics; it is being true to the very essence of the Olympic vision.

That said, it is urgent that the debate about a boycott rapidly broaden out and begin to canvas a wider array of strategies and options for a more assertive and constructive approach to addressing the unrelenting human rights crisis in China.  Many of those options could and should be tied to the Olympics, or at least use these 340 days to sharpen the world’s focus, build the pressure and set out clear expectations for change.

The UN Human Rights Council is currently in session and will meet two more times before the flame is lit in Beijing. It will also likely hold its first session in 2022 days after the Olympics wrap up and just as the Paralympics get underway.  It is scandalous the degree to which China continuously evades global human rights scrutiny.  There have been some incremental first steps leading to a public statement endorsed by Canada and 38 other states at the UN General Assembly last fall. But governments need markedly to ramp up their diplomatic game and consistently use the world’s premier human rights body to call out one of the world’s most egregious human rights violators. If not now; when?

Canada should move immediately to institute concrete measures such as more robust bans on products made through forced labour, targeted sanctions on Chinese government officials, initiatives to protect activists in Canada facing threats for their Chinese human rights advocacy, and explicit programs for refugees fleeing this repression.  Canadian parliamentary committees dealing with our relationship with China and with international human rights have put those and other recommendations in front of the government. Going further, Canada should actively encourage other governments to do similarly.

And all manner of stakeholders need human rights-focused Olympics strategies.

It is not good enough to say it is up to the International Olympic Committee or the Canadian Olympic Committee alone to navigate this dilemma. Yes, the IOC and the COC need to show resolve and action, especially if they continue to deflect boycott calls. We certainly need to hear regularly and convincingly from them about human rights. Corporate sponsors and media covering the Olympics also need to show us how they will be addressing these dire human rights concerns. The Canadian government, and all governments, must as well.

Who is going to attend the usual lavish opening ceremony? Who will pointedly stay away? Where is the coordination across governments to develop a coherent response? How will human rights concerns feature prominently in news reports? How will marketing campaigns take account of China’s grim human rights reality? What space and permission will be granted to individual athletes to speak out and show solidarity? 

We need answers to all those questions, now.  Answers that should be conveyed very publicly, to send a very clear message to Beijing. If the 2022 Winter Olympics do stay put in Beijing, the world will be preparing and will be showing up with human rights top of mind.

That is not playing politics. It is about respecting what the Olympics aspire to be. And, above all, it is about honouring the Uyghur people, the people of Hong Kong, Tibetans, Mongolians, Falun Gong practitioners, democracy campaigners, human rights defenders, journalists, labour activists, imprisoned Canadians and countless others for whom the blazing Olympic flame offers no inspiration or comfort.

* Photo: Hong Kong demonstrators protesting against human rights violations. Credit: Studio Incendo.