Canada joins US and allies in Beijing Olympics boycott

China has threatened 'firm countermeasures' in response

People walk past the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics logo at the Shougang Park in Beijing. AFP

Canada will join the US, the UK and Australia in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday.

The announcement came after the White House, the Australian government and the UK government confirmed diplomatic boycotts of the Winter Games in February to protest reported Chinese human rights abuses.

China has vowed to react with “firm countermeasures".

Mr Trudeau said his government has been talks with allies about the issue in recent months.

“We are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government,” Mr Trudeau said.

“They should not be surprised we will not be sending any diplomatic representation.”

The diplomatic moves by Canada, the US, Britain and Australia do not affect their athletes’ ability to compete in the games.

Rights groups have called for a full-blown boycott of the Beijing Winter Games, citing Chinese human rights abuses against its Uighur minority in the north-west Xinjiang province, which some have called a genocide.

They also point to Beijing’s suppression of democratic protests in Hong Kong and a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous territory.

The White House confirmed on Monday that it was staging a diplomatic boycott of the coming games and Australia followed suit on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying it was “in Australia’s national interest”.

Relations between Canada and China have been poor since China arrested two Canadians in December 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, on a US extradition request.

Many countries labelled China’s action “hostage politics”, while China has described the charges against Huawei and Ms Meng as a politically motivated attempt to hold back China’s economic and technological development.

China, the US and Canada essentially completed a high-stakes prisoner swap this year but the reputation of the Chinese government has been severely tarnished in Canada.

“Concerns around arbitrary detention are real and shared by many countries around the world,” Mr Trudeau said.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said more countries need to take similar action.

“It is important to send a strong signal to China,” Ms Joly said. “Human rights violations are not acceptable.”