UN chief to attend Winter Games amid boycotts
France also refuses to join protests by US and other nations, calls move 'insignificant'
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UNITED NATIONS • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will attend the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, his spokesman has said, after the US announced a diplomatic boycott and several other Western nations followed suit.
"The Secretary-General received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee to attend the opening of the Beijing Winter Games and he has accepted it," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Thursday.
The United States said its athletes would still compete, but that it would not send a diplomatic delegation in a protest against rights abuses by China. Australia, Britain and Canada also announced diplomatic boycotts.
France has no plans to join the boycott, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, calling such a move "insignificant".
"To be clear: You either have a complete boycott, and not send athletes, or you try to change things with useful actions," he told a news conference.
France would instead work with the International Olympic Committee on a charter guaranteeing the protection of athletes, "given what has happened over recent weeks", Mr Macron said.
It was an apparent reference to the case of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who disappeared for weeks after she made sexual assault accusations on social media against former Chinese vice-premier Zhang Gaoli.
"I don't think we should politicise these topics, especially if it's to take steps that are insignificant and symbolic," he said.
China warned nations that they would "pay the price" for boycotts.
"The US, Australia, Britain and Canada's use of the Olympic platform for political manipulation is unpopular and self-isolating, and they will inevitably pay the price for their wrongdoing," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.
China has also dismissed the British-based Uighur Tribunal as a "farce" being used by its enemies to spread lies, after it said that Chinese President Xi Jinping bore primary responsibility for what it said was genocide, and torture of Uighurs and members of other minorities in the Xinjiang region.
The tribunal, which is headed by British lawyer Geoffrey Nice and has no powers of sanction or enforcement, said on Thursday:
"The People's Republic of China (PRC) has committed genocide, crimes against humanity and torture against Uighur, Kazakh and other ethnic minority citizens in the north-west region of China known as Xinjiang."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
