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Thursday, December 9, 2021

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Beijing’s ‘Autocracy Olympics’ is almost here

 



 
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BY TYLER WEYANT

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UnitedHealth Group

Workers stand atop a building at the Big Air venue for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing.

Workers stand atop a building at the Big Air venue for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing. | Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

FASTER, HIGHER, FEWER — Plenty of athletes are making plans to get themselves, their skis and their curling brooms to Beijing this February for the Winter Olympics. And for plenty of countries, those athletes and their coaches will be the only representatives, as diplomatic boycotts of the Chinese games accelerated this week. Canada, Australia and the U.K. joined the U.S. today by announcing they would not be sending government officials to Beijing.

These Olympics will take place against the backdrop of a Western furor over China’s humanitarian and geopolitical actions, a departure from the traditional message of peace and goodwill the Games hope to convey. Nightly turned to China Watcher author Phelim Kine to forecast the political flurries that will swirl around the 2022 Winter Olympics. This conversation has been edited.

Now that we’re seeing Western diplomatic boycotts, what other actions can we expect before the games from democratic countries?

The U.S., Australian, New Zealand and Canadian diplomatic boycotts deprive the Chinese government of “today at the Olympics” photo opportunities with senior government leaders from those countries, which the Chinese government could spin as implicit support for Chinese policies generally, without harming athletes who have dedicated a significant portion of their lives to training for the Beijing Games in the way that a full boycott would do.

It’s likely that Biden’s virtual Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9 and 10, which brings together the leaders of more than 100 democratic states, will produce a longer list of countries joining the ranks of Olympic diplomatic boycotters.

With Western leaders out at the Games, what countries will show up in Beijing?

Clearly Beijing hopes that neighboring South Korea and Japan will send some form of official representation  neither country has confirmed attendance yet — but topping the list of high-profile attendees will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, who signaled weeks ago that he would attend the Beijing Games opening ceremony.

It may well be that Chinese leader Xi Jinping will use that occasion to hold a mini-summit with Putin where they can rail about their exclusion from the Summit for Democracy and perhaps announce plans for a counter-summit for more “democratically challenged” states.

It’s the governments of those states, including Hungary, Venezuela, Myanmar and Cuba, that will want to make a splash with their representatives attending the Games in a show of solidarity with Beijing and might tempt some pundits to christen them the “Autocracy Games.” Smaller developing states that have benefitted from infrastructure investments though Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative will likely also send government representatives to avoid offending a patron.

These Olympics will be awash in corporate funding, like those in the past. Republicans have called on corporations to reconsider their sponsorship of the Beijing Games. Has this pressure had any effect?

U.S. corporate sponsors of the Beijing Games as well as its official foreign broadcaster, NBCUniversal, have been under intense pressure from both human rights organizations and U.S. lawmakers to speak out about and disavow human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government. Those sponsors and NBCUniversal are refusing to do so for reasons including that their contracts with the International Olympic Committee and/or the Beijing authorities precludes any such actions.

Sponsors also stress that their contractual obligations typically span multiple Olympics, not just the 2022 Beijing Games, and that they can’t just walk away from multi-year, multi-competition contracts due to concerns about Beijing. Those arguments are going nowhere with both rights advocates and U.S. lawmakers, so you can expect a sharp intensification of public and political scrutiny and criticism of sponsors and NBCUniversal as the days count down to the opening of the Games on Feb. 4, 2022.

The genocide of Uyghurs in Western China is one of the top issues governments around the world have taken China to task over. How do you expect this issue to be addressed at the Olympics?

I think we can definitely expect a degree of athlete activism at this Games far exceeding what we’ve seen at other high profile international sports events, due to wide public recognition and concern about human rights abuses in China. That includes the plight of Xinjiang Uyhgurs, as well as concerns about the Chinese government’s effective evisceration of rule of law and universal rights and freedoms in Hong Kong over the past two years.

I suspect that the outspoken criticism of China’s human rights record by Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter will inspire athletes who compete in Beijing to also express their concerns in ways that catch media attention. The apparent enforced disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai and the World Tennis Association’s move to suspend all competitions in China pending clarity over her well being will also be a powerful motivator for political statements of various kinds for young female Olympians who have been part of the global #MeToo movement against sexual violence.

So China will have its hands full trying to prevent and mitigate an array of possibly very high-profile criticisms of its human rights record by foreign athletes

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at tweyant@politico.com , or on Twitter at @tweyant.

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Meadows files suit against Pelosi as Jan. 6 select panel moves against him: Mark Meadows, facing an imminent threat of criminal contempt of Congress charges, is suing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 select panel . The former White House chief of staff has filed legal action against Pelosi, according to court records. As the Jan. 6 select panel prepares to take action against him, Meadows has claimed he can’t discuss matters that could be covered by executive privilege.

— Pfizer says its booster shot can protect against Omicron: Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine may not offer enough protection against the Omicron variant but a booster shot increased antibody defenses 25-fold, the companies said today, citing preliminary laboratory results. The early data from the company study has not been peer-reviewed. The companies said a third dose appears to provide a similar number of antibodies as a two-dose series against the original virus and other variants. People who have two shots of the vaccine may still be protected against severe cases, they added.

President Joe Biden stops to talk to reporters before departing the White House.

President Joe Biden stops to talk to reporters before departing the White House. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

— Sending U.S. combat troops to Ukraine ‘not in the cards right now,’ Biden says: The president today ruled out the possibility of unilaterally sending U.S. combat troops to Ukraine if Russia invades the country — at least for now. “That’s not on the table,” Biden told reporters as he departed the White House en route to Kansas City, Mo. “We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies if [Russia] were to attack, under Article 5. It’s a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend … to Ukraine.”

— Senate Dems launch last-ditch effort to change the rules of the chamber: Rather than the draconian step of tossing out the filibuster, Senate Democrats are debating other possible rule changes that could pave the way for election reform bills that are viewed by Democrats as paramount to combatting restrictive new voting laws and preserving democracy. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is a member of the group drafting the reforms, said it would be “premature” to share specifics of the possible rule changes at this stage because “there's no handshake deal yet.” But he did express a level of cautious optimism, stressing that abolishing the filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes to advance legislation, is not under consideration this time.

 

JOIN TUESDAY FOR A WOMEN RULE 2021 REWIND AND A LOOK AHEAD AT 2022: Congress is sprinting to get through a lengthy and challenging legislative to-do list before the end of the year that has major implications for women’s rights. Join Women Rule editor Elizabeth Ralph and POLITICO journalists Laura Barrón-LópezEleanor MuellerElena Schneider and Elana Schor for a virtual roundtable that will explore the biggest legislative and policy shifts in 2021 affecting women and what lies ahead in 2022. REGISTER HERE.

 
 

— Crypto CEOs to Congress: We want regulation, our way: The U.S. cryptocurrency industry’s top CEOs pleaded with lawmakers today to let their startups flourish without onerous regulations as Washington struggles to figure out how to police a decade-old digital asset market that's approaching $3 trillion. The crypto leaders appeared at a House Financial Services Committee hearing that revealed an emerging ideological divide between the left and the right over how the government should oversee the industry. It’s an increasingly urgent question for federal regulators and Congress with 16 percent of Americans saying they have used cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether.

— Dem leaders considering anti-Islamophobia bill to answer Boebert-Omar controversy: House Democratic leaders are eyeing several options to respond to Rep. Lauren Boebert's Islamophobic comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar — all of which fall short of progressives’ demands. Referring Boebert to the House Ethics Committee or calling up a measure tackling Islamophobia are among the actions being discussed by Democratic leaders to deal with the Colorado conservative, according to three people familiar with the matter. That might not be enough to satisfy progressives, who introduced legislation today to boot Boebert from her committees.

 

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

2 months

The delay of North Carolina’s planned March primary to May by the state’s highest court while state courts review claims of illegal gerrymandering.

 

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

 
 
PARTING WORDS

FROM QUIBI TO NAIROBI — Biden nominated Meg Whitman, a business executive and onetime California gubernatorial candidate, today to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Kenya.

Whitman, the former leader of Hewlett Packard and eBay, endorsed then-candidate Biden at the Democratic National Convention in August 2020. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Donald Trump despite her longstanding ties to the GOP.

In 2010 Whitman ran for governor of California, losing to Democrat Jerry Brown by double digits despite spending $177 million — including $144 million from her vast personal wealth — on her campaign.

More recently, Whitman helmed the star-crossed video streaming platform Quibi, which was financially flush and launched with considerable fanfare in 2020, only to flame out within months. Quibi’s content library was sold off to Roku earlier this year.

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