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08.11.2024
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Biden is exploring a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics

scale 1200 1A high-ranking representative of the State Department during a telephone briefing on Wednesday said that American President Joe Biden is studying the issue of a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

"About the Olympic Games. I have nothing to add to what President [Biden said on this topic] before Thanksgiving [celebrated in the US on November 25]. He is considering this issue, but I have nothing [to say] about it," he said, answering a question about whether the topic of a diplomatic boycott of the Games by Western countries will be discussed at the upcoming high-level meeting between the US and the EU on China in Washington on Thursday.
On November 16, Biden, during a conversation with reporters, also did not give an unambiguous answer to the question of whether the Washington administration would send a delegation to the Olympic Games. On the same day, The Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, in an article published on the publication's website, citing sources, claimed that the Washington administration plans to announce a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games. As the publication noted, the final decision has not yet been made, but the head of state has received relevant recommendations with which he intends to agree.
In May of this year, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, called on the international community to diplomatically boycott the Olympic Games in China. In her opinion, the leaders of the leading countries of the world should refrain from participating in competitions. The reason was the mass repressions attributed to the PRC in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Beijing categorically rejects such claims. At the same time, the US National Olympic Committee opposed the boycott.
The XXIV Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing from February 4 to 20, 2022.