The 2022 Winter Olympics are currently scheduled to be held in Communist China on 4 – 20 Feb next year, per the official website here. These games are a big deal to the ChiComs and Chairman Xi in particular – a prestige event that helps them showcase the supposed benefits of “authoritarian capitalism” (sic) while ostensibly legitimizing their iron-fisted rule in the eyes of the Chinese people. I can think of a multitude of reasons for an American-led boycott:
- The Tibetan genocide
- The Uyghur genocide
- Violation of the UK-China the Joint Declaration on Sovereignty on Hong Kong
- ChiCom saber-rattling in the South China Sea
- The ChiCom virus: origins, lies, and the need for a real independent investigation
Those are for starters, but I happen to prefer a simpler reason: they are an authoritarian Communist government that suppresses Chinese citizens relentlessly while practicing predatory mercantilist trade practices that negatively impact many countries’ economies. Engagement with the ChiComs – as practiced through US policy toward Communist China before the Age of Trump – has not curbed undemocratic behavior; rather, the ChiComs have been emboldened and enriched by the West’s weaknesses. Did the ChiComs moderate their behavior after the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing? Not so much, according to the at least 1,000,000 Uyghurs who spent time in one of the 380 “detention camps” operating in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. [And if that name isn’t a perfect example of the typical Communist misnomer – “autonomous” – then nothing is!]
Well, surprise, surprise! Even Sen. Mitt “Pierre Delecto” Romney (RINO-UT) has weighed in with his suggestion for a “proper” boycotting of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Here are a couple of excerpts from his op-ed in The New York Times today:
The right answer is an economic and diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. American spectators — other than families of our athletes and coaches — should stay at home, preventing us from contributing to the enormous revenues the Chinese Communist Party will raise from hotels, meals and tickets. American corporations that routinely send large groups of their customers and associates to the Games should send them to U.S. venues instead.
Rather than send the traditional delegation of diplomats and White House officials to Beijing, the president should invite Chinese dissidents, religious leaders and ethnic minorities to represent us.
An economic and diplomatic boycott should include collaboration with NBC, which has already done important work to reveal the reality of the Chinese Communist Party’s repression and brutality. NBC can refrain from showing any jingoistic elements of the opening and closing ceremonies and instead broadcast documented reports of China’s abuses.
Romney thinks that the above recommendations will not adversely affect the American athletes who have trained for years like a complete boycott would. That’s very altruistic of him, but as usual, he only proposes half measures. If he was indeed serious about an “economic boycott” (and I’m not certain he is serious because he didn’t “demand” anything and merely made some toothless recommendations), he would have pressed for a complete television blackout of the Olympics in the US and pressured NBC to do so. How much benefit do the ChiComs get from ANY television coverage of the events? A lot.
Here is a much better boycott solution:
- Hold an “Alternative Winter Olympic Games” concurrent with the Beijing 2022 games.
- Offer Italy the job as host country to make up for the significant economic loss that Italians suffered as a result of the ChiCom virus. Let the Italians benefit bigly from the economic benefits of hosting the Alt-Games. If Italy declines, then the US can host the games in Idaho/Montana/Colorado.
- Divert several billion dollars from the $1.9 trillion “COVID relief/porkulus bill” that Democrats recently jammed down our throats to jump-start preparations for the Alt Games. That shouldn’t be too difficult since 91% of the bill doesn’t go to COVID relief anyway. If Italy wishes to host the games, then set up a joint US-Italian Alt-Games committee to help manage the facilities development and arrange the judges and other infrastructure requirements exclusively funded by American dollars. That’s REAL altruism, Mitt.
- Advertise the Alt Games worldwide, inviting other countries to boycott the Beijing 2022 games. This will sort the wheat from the chaff.
Result? The ChiComs are smacked down and embarrassed, our athletes get to compete on the world stage in a non-Communist country, and we find out who our friends and enemies are. And Western-style capitalism will be shown to have worked wonders, too. Getting a complete Alternate Winter Olympics planned and executed should be a snap. After all, Mitt Romney has direct experience as “the president and C.E.O. of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002.” Let’s get him to resign his Senate seat and “volunteer” for the job of CEO of the 2022 Alternate Winter Olympics. That would be a twofer: making the Alternate Olympics happen and removing a RINO thorn and NeverTrumper from the US Senate.
The end.