This week, the Biden Administration announced it will stage a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Winter Olympics — scheduled to get underway in February. A number of countries now face a potentially awkward policy choice and that includes in the Asia Pacific region.
China is outraged, Australia is joining the boycott, and Japan is considering options.
That’s just a partial snapshot of some initial regional reactions to a “diplomatic boycott” of the Winter Olympics.
That phrase just means that athletes will still go, but government officials won’t.
The games are scheduled to get underway in about eight weeks — which doesn’t leave a lot of time for governments to decide whether they will join the U.S. led action.
This morning local time, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his country will send athletes to Beijing, but not diplomats.
Relations between Australia and China have been rocky for some time, especially since the Canberra government supported further research into the origins of the novel coronavirus in China.
New Zealand is not sending any officials to Beijing, although the deputy Prime Minister said that’s mostly because of the pandemic.
Japan is one of the more intriguing regional cases.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says his government hasn’t yet decided what to do, saying, “We would like to make our own decision from the standpoint of our national interests.”
Japan has been more critical of China in recent months on issues from human rights to Taiwan, but the Tokyo government may want to maintain cordial relations into the new year as 2022 will mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
