Call for boycott plays White House for a fool: China Daily editorial

Immediately after a goodwill virtual meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden, reports emerged that Washington is considering acceding to calls for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in February.

According to the reports, the White House will soon announce that neither President Biden nor any other US government official will attend the Games, on the pretext of protesting against China's alleged "violation of human rights".

This would allow hyping up of claims of "concentration camps" and "genocide" in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, while still allowing US athletes to participate.

Although this may seem like a smart idea. It will just make the US look foolish.

The message that would be sent by a diplomatic boycott of the games is simply that the US is too big for its breeches.

How much do the US leader and officials in his administration know about Xinjiang firsthand? How much do they know about what has happened and is happening there?

Do they know about how frequent terrorist attacks were in Xinjiang from 1990 to 2016 and how the normal lives of different ethnic groups were disrupted by thousands of terrorist attacks in different forms? Did they show any concern for the victims of such attacks?

No, they did not. Because they did not care.

What the Chinese government has done in cracking down on terrorism has put paid to the rampancy of violent terrorist attacks. Xinjiang has been free from such attacks for more than five years. It is indicative of the intentions that the voicing of concerns about Xinjiang are being heard now, because it is enjoying peace and stability.

The US lawmakers calling for a diplomatic boycott are standing on the wrong side of justice.

Instead of going to Xinjiang to see what is happening with their own eyes and talking with local people of different ethnic groups to hear their views, they choose instead to lend an ear to what some secessionists say about Xinjiang.

Everybody knows what they will say. They will spare no efforts in making up stories to smear the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government. For them, the end justifies the means. They do not care about the well-being of residents of different ethnic groups in Xinjiang, neither do they care about telling the truth about what has happened there.

Yet it is based on their lies that the US politicians are calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

That smacks of a premeditated design that has nothing to do with human rights.