Sydney – Australia will not send officials to Beijing Winter Olympics, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, joining a strike by American politicians at the event.
“Australia will not back down from the strong position we had in representing Australia, and it is not surprising that we would not have sent Australian officials to those games,” he said.
After months of negotiations, the White House on Monday decided not to send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over China’s “cruelty” of human rights.
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“Biden officials will not submit any official submissions or submissions to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and the Paralympic Games, given the ongoing PRC killings and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” White House correspondent Jen Psaki told reporters at the time. . a press conference in Washington on Monday.
Psaki said moving ahead with an American lawyer or legal representation would successfully treat the Beijing Games, which are set to begin on February 4, “as a business as usual” despite China’s “human rights abuses and cruelty” in the far west of Xinjiang. region.
“We will not do that,” Psaki said.
American athletes will still be allowed to participate in the Olympics.
Japan has yet to decide on any action against the Games, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Hayashi said Japan would reach a decision on the issue “in due course” and that Tokyo continues to prioritize human rights issues and negotiations with the Chinese side.
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New Zealand were the first to join the US, saying on Tuesday they would not send strategists to the Games. However, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said the move was more influenced by security concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic than by human rights issues.
As New Zealand and Australia join US in a series of strikes, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday stressed that Tokyo’s decision on the issue will be independent and focused on Japan’s “national interests”.
“We would like to make our decision based on our national interests” in view of the potential impact on Japanese diplomacy and the Olympics, Kishida said.
Kishida will have to balance Japan’s economic interests with China and calls from law enforcement agencies to join the crackdown on US officials not only in Tokyo’s growing focus on human rights but also in Beijing’s proximity to Taiwan and its repeated influx of government vessels into waters surrounding Japan. Senkaku Islands East of the China Sea. Beijing also claims the islands, calling themselves Diaoyu.