US won't push Winter Olympics sponsors to pull out, but lawmakers seek action

Earlier this week, the Joe Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing human rights violations by China. The US was soon followed by other Western countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

A diplomatic boycott would not affect participation by athletes. On Thursday, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the Biden administration would not pressure sponsors to pull out of the games. Raimondo said, “What individual companies do is entirely up to them. We’re not going to pressure them one way or another. So if a company decides—as many companies have—that they want to make a statement against human rights abuses, then that would be great. But we’re not going to be pushing anyone to make that decision.”

She was speaking at a meeting with reporters and editors of Bloomberg.

However, individual lawmakers in the US have called for a tougher stance.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio accused the sponsors of the Winter Olympics of “ignoring an ongoing genocide in the blind pursuit of profits”. Rubio wrote an open letter to the sponsors: Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Intel, NBC, Omega, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Samsung and Visa. He called on these companies to “acknowledge the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”. He asked the companies to lobby with the International Olympic Committee to move the Winter Olympics out of China or pull their advertising money if the event went ahead in Beijing.

“We continue to argue that a diplomatic boycott is not enough,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts were quoted as saying by South China Morning Post.

They argued, “At the very least, the American corporate sponsors of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should also refuse to send senior executives to the Games in Beijing.”

Representative Mike Waltz, a Republican, was quoted by South China Morning Post as saying these companies “preach social justice, and that helps their balance sheet in the United States, and ignoring human rights helps their balance sheet in China”.

He singled out Coca-Cola, Airbnb and Procter & Gamble for criticism, declaring “the American people are sick and tired of the hypocrisy”.