The Winter Olympic Games in Beijing are just days away, but the Biden administration’s campaign to orchestrate a diplomatic boycott, so far joined by only a few allies, is already failing to meet certain expectations. It seems as if the criterion for success was to get a sizeable group of countries on board to shame China into improving its human rights conditions.
There’s no question that Beijing’s horrendous acts against the Uyghurs and other minorities in China are atrocious. But policymakers would be deeply misguided to think that such a symbolic gesture, even if perfectly executed, can trigger any meaningful change in Beijing. There are better ways to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s forced labor violations than merely checking symbolic boxes.
Consider some “successful” boycotts in Olympics history. In 1980, America led a boycott, joined by more than 60 countries, of the Moscow Games in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan because of the boycott, but generous critics would say that the gesture nevertheless eroded the Kremlin’s prestige and might have even contributed to the regime’s demise about a decade later. But maybe the administration should ask the Ukrainians how they feel about Russian aggression.
