Senate Foreign Relations Cmte. Chair Backs Biden On Winter Olympics Boycotts - Statement

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2021) President Joe Biden's decision to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in China in February shows that support of human rights is still a foundation of US foreign policy, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez said.

"I applaud the Biden administration for forcefully underscoring that the preservation of human rights is still a foundational pillar of American foreign policy," Menendez said in a statement on Monday. The White House confirmed the boycott on Monday.

The Biden administration announced on Monday it will officially impose a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics to be held in Beijing, China.

Menendez said the boycott would serve as a powerful rebuke of what he called "the Chinese Communist Party's campaign of genocide" in Xinjiang.

The Senator said as the Chinese government continues with its mass internments, family separations, forced labor, forced renunciations of faith, and forced sterilizations, the world must be united in confronting the staggering enormity of Beijing's egregious human rights violations.

Menendez also accused China of carrying out human rights abuses in Tibet and crushing Hong Kong's autonomy and called on US allies and partners to join in the boycott.