# Prem Sagar Poudel
Protest to the Winter Olympics in the Chinese capital, Beijing, has grown. The protests, which began a year ago, have been backed by Western nations that have long been working against China.
Named ‘Resistance Beijing-2022’, the first large-scale protest campaign is scheduled for January 4, 2022. Tibetan, Uighur, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Southern Mongolian and Chinese rights activists and their supporters will be participated in the campaign.
Eighty-six organizations have been involved in the campaign, raising concerns about human rights abuses in China. According to the campaign’s official website, since the beginning of 2021, small-scale events have been taking place with ‘Resistance Beijing-2022’ at the center. Attempts are now being made to internationalize all these protests.
At the forefront of the campaign is the International Tibetan Network. The network was set up by 120 organizations working on behalf of exiled Tibetans. The network has focused its activities on the lack of human rights in China. The network is supported by European nations, including the United States.
China’s 2022 Winter Olympics was selected at the 128th IOC meeting in Singapore in July 2015. This is the first Winter Olympics to be held in China. Earlier, the 2008 Summer Olympics was held in China. At the IOC meeting, Kazakhstan’s Almaty and China’s Beijing were shortlisted. Beijing was chosen as the host country for the Olympic Games by four votes more than Almaty.
China had proposed to hold the 2022 Olympics on the same site as the 2008 Olympic Games. For the Winter and Summer Olympics, which are held every four years, the time of the Olympic Games should be at least six months apart. Due to Corona, Japan hosted the 2021 Summer Olympics only. Opposition groups called for a halt to the Beijing Olympics, citing a lack of time in the first round. They argued that the Beijing Olympics should be canceled because of the short time between the two Olympic Games in Japan and China.
On October 18, 2021, the Beijing Olympics were formally forwarded. The torchlight voyage from the ancient Greek city of Olympia began this year with a lot of safety measures due to the corona. The torchlight procession brought from Olympia to the Greek capital Athens was handed over to the Olympic Games Organizing Committee from Beijing on 19 October.
The torch light, which was brought from Olympia via various countries, was brought to Beijing China’s capital on October 20. The Olympic torch in Beijing will now be unveiled on February 2. The torch will be taken to Yanking on February 3. The lights will be formally taken to Beijing National Stadium from Yanking on February 4. The stadium will host most of the Olympic Games.
The stadium can accommodate 91,000 spectators. The stadium, which looks like a bird’s nest at first glance, was built for the 2008 Olympic Games. The Olympic Committee has decided to implement the required health standards for the Olympic Games on September 21, 2021. According to that standard, all players must be vaccinated against corona. In addition, it is mandatory to stay in quarantine for 21 days. It has been decided to allow only Chinese people to watch live games in the stadiulm.
Earlier, the Summer Olympics scheduled for July 24, 2020 in Japan were postponed due to Corona. The Olympic Games were inaugurated on July 23, 2021 amidst various protests. The competition was organized under the pressure of the United States rather than the desire of Japan. Officials in the US state of Florida have offered to hold delayed games in their state. Their offer put further pressure on Japan to conduct a stalled game.
Flame of protest:
Protests against the Olympics, which are being held in China, have intensified since the Winter Olympic torch was lit. Demonstrators carried banners at a torchlight procession in the ancient Greek city of Olympia. The banner held by protesters carrying the Tibetan flag, as, “There is no game of genocide.” Greek police tried to stop them.
High-ranking officials, including Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, attended the event. Demonstrations against China at the event, which is considered important even in terms of security, cannot be taken as a normal event. But Greek authorities have made it clear that protesters had entered into the venue before the police arrived.
Speaking on the occasion, International President of the Olympic Committee Thomas Bach said that the game would proceed as per the schedule. “This is an important moment in bringing the world together in a spirit of peace, friendship and solidarity,” he said. On July 23, a group of US senators asked President Bach to suspend the Olympic Games in China.
A petition filed by the senator calls for the postponement of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The petition called for the game to be postponed and relocated until China ends its human rights abuses against Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups. The petition was signed by Senators Jeff Merkley (Democrat-Oregon), Jim McGovern (Democrat-Massachusetts), Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida), and Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey).
More than one million Uighurs, a minority living in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, have been accused of violating human rights by the Western countries. The West have also been advocating about the long-standing Muslim minority in China. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union have recently announced ban against China, saying more than one million Muslims have been detained without information since 2017. Since then, the issue has become a topic of debate in the field of international human rights.
In July 1919, 22 countries issued a joint statement at the 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The statement condemned the mass detention of Uighurs and other minorities in China. In contrast, 50 countries have criticized for politicizing human rights issues of China. They supported China’s Xinjiang policy.
The Resistance Beijing-2022 campaign seems to have tried to bring six issues together. The first of these issues is the issue of advocating of the Muslim community. Only then has the issue of independent Tibet been raised. The issue of independent Tibet has been at the forefront of previous protests. Third is the National Security Bill, implemented by the Chinese government in Hong Kong. The fourth is to raise the issue of China’s ban on language protection in southern Mongolia. However, despite efforts to unify all these issues, the Uighur community is still the biggest issue for the West.
American Interest:
Not only the issue of Tibet, but also the issue of the Uighur community has been taken seriously by the United States for the last time. Tibet has become like a hindrance to the western nations, including the United States. Therefore, they have been looking for new issues to embarrass China.
They have also raised the issue in human rights organizations, including the United Nations and the UNHCR. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act in 2019. The law also authorizes the then-US President Donald Trump to ban Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo. The bill was signed by Trump on July 17, 2020.
The United States has not been able to invest in the Uighur community as the Tibetans. Because they are within the geography of China, Western nations, including the United States, have continued to try to stir up the community as much as possible. A handwritten letter was posted on the social network Twitter on February 26, 2020. The tweet with the photo, “I want to get out of here and be with my husband.” The tweet, made by Nadila Woomer, who lives in Xinjiang in western China, was published by Western news organizations, including the BBC.
Members of the Uyghur community are hardly outside of China. So they seem to be carrying the flag of independent Tibetans. This means that the US wants to embarrass China by uniting independent Tibetans and Uighurs. The international media has been equally supportive. As the subject of Tibetan is old, the subject of Uyghur is also being hot issue to the West. The West is considering forming a large anti-China front, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia.
Let’s look back:
Tibetans staged an international protest against the first Olympic Games in China in 2008. They have raised the voices Internationally against Beijing Olympics with the intention of influencing it anyhow. The Chinese government has also been cautious about whether the Beijing Olympics will be affected. The 2008 Beijing Games were the largest sporting event in China.
The West wanted to embarrass China by raising the issue of Tibetan human rights. China wanted to show the international community the progress it has made by hosting the Olympics anyway. About a year passed in the midst of this dilemma. Amid their protests, China pushed ahead the Olympic torchlight procession. The torchlight procession, which began on March 24, 2008 and lasted for 129 days, was named the “Journey of Harmony” by China.
At the time, Britain and France were the center of protests for independent Tibetans. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and the chairman of the London Olympic Committee, Lord Cole, called the Chinese authorities “thugs” for beating protesters. In France, the Green Party was opposed to the torchlight procession. Chinese officials have canceled a torchlight ceremony amid protests by Green Party officials, including the hoisting of a Tibetan flag from a City Hall window. In Paris and London, independent Tibetans have repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to snatch torches from Chinese authorities.
The torch was brought to China on May 4, 2008, after Chinese officials toured 20 countries, including the United States, India and Korea, amid concerns that the Olympic torch would not be taken to Beijing. Apart from other countries, the security of Chinese officials in Hong Kong, Tibet, was the subject of a security challenge for the torchlight. In Hong Kong, anti-China protesters, including the Szeto Wah, staged a plastic Olympic flame. They called it a symbol of democracy and broadcast it by the Western media.
The torchlight procession, which started in Tibet on June 21, had to be lowered from the scheduled three days to one day. The event was cut short after the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) and the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) threatened to sabotage the touch light. This means that China was very much aware of the conspiracies of those who influenced the Olympic Games. Although it was a common occurrence during the Torchlight Rally, it had an international impact. The media was following the torchlight procession saying something might happen. European nations, including the United States, have been trying to figure out how to stop China from hosting the Beijing Olympics.
There is another side to this. For the first time, China was showing its development to the international community. In recent times, big competitions including the Olympics have been the basis of measuring prosperity. In the six decades since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China has made great strides in physical development. They did not want to lose this opportunity to show their China.
This weakness of China was taken by the West as their strength. They thought that the issue of Tibetans could be managed by embarrassing China through the Olympics. The Tibetans concern has been active in the international community, especially to the United States. Tibetan nationalism, awakened by American activism, waned after the Olympics. As a result, the movement for an independent Tibet is now on its deathbed.
With the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the activity of independent Tibetans has also increased in Nepal. The government of Nepal did not pay much attention to the daily demonstrations in support of independent Tibetans in the Boudhdha area of Kathmandu. The then US Ambassador to the Nepal, Nancy Powell, urged the then-Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala not to suppress the human rights movement. After her request, Powell also informed Prime Minister Koirala that Nepal would be accused of violating human rights by suppressing the movement for the independent Tibet.
The domes in Tibetan settlements areas were used by activists to advance the independent Tibetan movement. Independent Tibetan supporters from different parts of the world, not only from India, had come to Nepal to intensify the agitation in Nepal.
A group of French parliamentarians who came to Nepal to observe the Constituent Assembly elections also met with those activists who forwarded the independent Tibet movement. French Ambassador to Nepal Jill Henry Darold also visited the Tibetan refugee camp in Boudhdha and waved the flag in favor of an independent Tibet. Lawmakers Vivon Colin and Thierry Repentin, who came to observe the election, encouraged Tibetans to continue their protest. Such a call in the presence of the ambassador heightened the Tibetan activists’ moral.
The French lawmakers, who arrived with the ambassador, expressed solidarity with the movement for Tibet’s independence. They also handed over the flag of independent Tibet to Thinley Galso, the Dalai Lama’s Nepal representative. The Olympic torch was lit on the afternoon of August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China, despite the siege from all areas. Thousands of spectators, including 13,000 athletes, flocked to the stadium for the Olympic Games. However, China has not stopped tightening its border till the end of Olympics.
Current Situation:
Between the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2008 Olympic Games, the situation in China has changed dramatically. Until 2008, the international arena was less focused on than internal development. At present, China has emerged as a player in the international arena along with domestic development. Therefore, it seems that the heads of government of all countries have to think once and for all before speaking at the government level against China. All of this is due to the recent expansion of China’s influence.
The organizers of the Resistance Beijing-2022 seem to have three reasons why the Olympic Games should not be held in China. First, they argue, there is only a short-period gap between the Summer Olympics in Japan and the Winter Olympics in China. According to the rules of the Olympic Committee, it takes six months to organize one Olympic Games after another. The Summer Olympics in Japan started on July 23, 2021. In that sense, there is a six-month gap between the Beijing Olympics on February 4 and the previous Tokyo Olympics.
Another argument is that the Summer Olympics should not be held in Beijing because of the corona infection. Due to the corona infection, the Olympic Games could not be held on time. While debating whether to host the Games in Japan, the US state of Florida offered to host the tournament, which was postponed to January 26, 2021 in Japan. As Florida announced this, 156,000 new corona infected patient were added to the United States. There was no possibility of controlling the infection.
Following pressure from Florida, Japan decided to host the Olympics. For this, all safety measures were adopted. The Olympic Games, which are currently being held in China, require all safety measures. China has also made the necessary preparations for this. In addition, spectators from outside China will be completely banned from watching the game. The use of vaccines has been emphasized. Therefore, there is no scientific basis behind their argument.
Another argument is that there is no human right in China. If there is no human right in China, how can these issues are debated only now? Their argument does not appear to have affected the Beijing Olympics. However, the campaign to influence the Olympics seems to be continuing. For this, they have started submitting memorandums urging the sponsors of the Olympic Games not to sponsor them.
On November 18, 2021, US President John Biden announced that the United States would conduct a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games in China, the intention behind it appearing clearly. The United States wants to rekindle its long-running dispute with China over the Olympics. In other words, the US seems to be openly trying to embarrass China. According to the Chinese media organization Global Times, China has not invited Western politicians who are opposed to the Olympic Games.
Nepal, which is in favor of the one-China policy, has not yet clarified its position. The important question now is how this government views the anti-China activities taking place in Nepal during the Olympics. The fact that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is closer to the West than China, as a result it is difficult to predict the stand of Nepal. However, there is no contradiction that not to stand Nepal in China’s opposition pole is a basis for protecting Nepal’s interests.
