House Speaker Pelosi backs 2022 Olympics diplomatic boycott

“We cannot proceed as if nothing is wrong about the Olympics going to China,” the California Democrat said during a joint video hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Rather than advocating for a full boycott of next year’s Winter Games, in which countries would keep their athletes away entirely and corporate sponsors would stay away, too, Pelosi instead said world leaders should not attend the competition because “of a genocide that is ongoing while you’re sitting there in your seats.”

“Honor your athletes at home. Let’s have a diplomatic boycott if, in fact, this Olympics takes place,” Pelosi said. “Silence is inexcusable.”

The Beijing Games are slated to begin Feb. 4, 2022, just six months after the postponed Summer Olympics in Tokyo are scheduled to end. Rights groups have met several times in the last year with the International Olympic Committee, asking that these Olympics be moved out of China, which also hosted the 2008 Summer Games.