Amid global calls to boycott Beijing Olympics 2022, India has come out in support of China, along with Russia, to host the international sporting event. Addressing the virtual meeting of RIC (Russia-India-China) Foreign Ministers, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar pledged New Delhi’s support to Beijing and said that the ministers expressed their support to China to host the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games.
The statement came at a time when the Chinese administration is facing global outrage over its human right violations against members of its Uyghur Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang province. One of the advocates of boycotting Beijing Winters Olympics, US President Joe Biden had earlier said that US is considering a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympic games to protest China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
The diplomatic boycott, referred by Joe Biden, meant that American athletes will participate in the games but any official delegation of the US government officials would not be seen at the event. Prior to that, a US state department spokesman had said that US was in talks with its key allies to protest against China’s human right violations at the Winter Olympics.
Speaking about the RIC meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yi had said at the meeting that China will work with Russia and India acting in the spirit of openness, solidarity, trust and cooperation, in spirit of the RIC mechanism. He further added that RIC showed a signal of true multilateralism and democracy promotion in international relations to the world. The three leaders discussed a wide range of issues including Afghanistan, Covid-19 and Climate change in the meeting.
Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 will be hosted by China from March 4-13 next year.
