World News | Canada Joins US and Allies in Beijing Olympics Boycott
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Canada will join the United States, the United Kingdon and Australia in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.
Toronto, Dec 8 (AP) Canada will join the United States, the United Kingdon and Australia in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.
The announcement came after the White House, the Australian government and the UK government confirmed diplomatic boycotts of the Winter Games in February to protest Chinese human rights abuses. China has vowed to react with “firm countermeasures.”
Trudeau said his government has been talks with allies about it in recent months.
The diplomatic moves by Canada, the U.S., Britain and Australia do not affect their athletes' ability to compete in the games.
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Rights groups have called for a full-blown boycott of the Beijing Winter Games, citing Chinese human rights abuses against its Uyghur minority in the northwest Xinjiang province, which some have called genocide. They also point to Beijing's suppression of democratic protests in Hong Kong and a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous territory.
The White House confirmed Monday that it was staging a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming games and Australia followed suit Wednesday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying it was “in Australia's national interest.”
Relations between Canada and China have been poor since China arrested two Canadians in China in Dec. 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies' chief financial officer and the daughter of the company's founder, on a U.S. extradition request.
Many countries labeled China's action “hostage politics," while China has described the charges against Huawei and Meng as a politically motivated attempt to hold back China's economic and technological development.
China, the U.S. and Canada essentially completed a high-stakes prisoner swap earlier this year but the reputation of the Chinese government has been severely tarnished in Canada. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)