U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday called for world leaders to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over China's alleged human rights abuses, including against the Muslim Uyghur minority in its Xinjiang region.
"Here's what I propose...a diplomatic boycott," Pelosi told a congressional hearing to examine the implications of holding the Olympics in China, adding, "Let's not honor the Chinese government by having heads of state go to China."
"For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing, while you're sitting there in your seats, really begs the question, 'What moral authority do you have to speak again about human rights any place in the world?'" she said.
Pelosi is known as a tough critic of the Chinese Communist Party.
Calls have been emerging from U.S. lawmakers for an Olympic boycott or venue change and attention is now focused on how the administration of President Joe Biden plans to deal with the Beijing Olympics as it pushes for the promotion of human rights.
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian lambasted the United States, saying it is using the so-called human rights issue to obstruct the holding of the Beijing Olympics.
"China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition," Zhao told reporters in Beijing, adding some U.S. politicians "should not stand on the opposite side of athletes from various countries."
The U.S. Democratic administration has criticized China's repression of the Uyghurs as amounting to a "genocide," maintaining the stance of the previous administration of Republican Donald Trump.
"Silence on this issue is unacceptable. It enables China's abuses," Pelosi, also a Democrat, said.
China has consistently said its detention camps are vocational training centers established to combat terrorism and religious extremism preemptively, urging the United States not to interfere in its "internal affairs."
Democratic congressman Jim McGovern said it is possible to relocate the global sporting event from China.
"If we can postpone an Olympics by a year for a pandemic, we can surely postpone the Olympics for a year for a genocide," he said, referring to the decision by Japan and the International Olympic Committee last year to delay the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games due to the coronavirus outbreak.
"This would give the IOC time to relocate to a country whose government is not committing atrocities," the House of Representatives member said.
