europe in your countries or cetera. and so this is a way to work against the trent. and so this is a way to attack the time ministration that is currently in our and potentially affect elections. because sometimes how many is do perceive the stinking of international space when they do lose the amount of allies over in most cases, how and artificial ties with other countries, such as what the us food does not actually have formulation. taiwan are more important than d is de fanatic allies who do not actually do much except the to speak up or taiwan once in awhile. and these are joshua organizations. but i think china will try to continue with activity ah, what's out there with me? so he'll run the reminder of all top stories. the high court in london has rule that we can find a judy. the songs can be extradited to the united states. the 50 year old can face trial in the us on charges including publishing classified military documents. though it is a vicious nobel prize on calling to better protection of generally favorable for

retiring government journalists, maria resar from the philippines, and dmitri minutes, all from russia, showing the price to the fight to promote freedom of expression, cited protests against military rule in me, and mob been held in several cities, they include the deserted streets of the commercial capital, young gone. the silence is being seen as a safe way to protest or to the brutal crackdowns or mass demonstrations following the qu. in february, an overcrowded truck has crashed in southern mexico, killing at least 54 people believed to have been heading to the united states. another 55 were injured, please suspect the overturned and hit the bridge because it is so overloaded. donald trump has suffered another set back to his attempt to book the release of official records of the capitol hill rides. last january, a federal appeals court rejected his please keep documents inside record secret because of presidential privilege trumps. now expected to appeal to the supreme

court, millions of american teenagers can now get an additional short of code $900.00 vaccine. as the government expanded to campaign, the food and drug administration says that the cases on the rise, the benefits of a booster jump under 18 year olds, weighs the risks. but the world health organization says it isn't necessary for everyone to get the extra 3rd shot. the w h o has only those of compromised immune system should be encouraged to receive booster vaccines. the organization also says the priority should be getting back to nations. everyone, everywhere. the state department has called other democratic countries to expand their engagement with taiwan. and after nicaragua, as government decided to cut diplomatic ties to the island nation, the chinese foreign ministry. welcome to move and praise the correct us commitment to the communist parties, one china policy. those will had logic, holiday stories on our website down there at dot com. i'm back with the news are in less than 30 minutes. next it's inside story to stay with us.

ah. was, will a diplomatic boy called to the bathing winter olympics? achieve canada is the latest country to join australia, britain and the united states, to protest against china's human rights for both on deeper political issues at play . this is inside store. ah and i welcome to the program,

i'm nick log sport and politics often makes whenever the olympic games are held. it will apparently be no different for the beijing when to games due to begin in february. despite chime is repeated denials of human rights violations, and suppression of freedoms, particularly unchanging and hong kong. the chinese leadership is coming under increasing scrutiny. canada is joining the u. s. britain and australia in a diplomatic boycott or the games. athletes from the 4 countries will still go to badging, but government representatives won't be there for the opening and closing ceremonies or to attend official functions. so far other countries seem more reluctant to join in france as president calls, the boy got insignificant and pointless. response to pop up politi, i don't think we should politicize this to make very small and symbolic measures. either we say we're going to do a complete boy called, we're not going to send any athletes away, going to try to re engage in how workable useful actions. i'm more in favor of doing things that have a useful effect. 13, what aside from human rights,

the 4 boycotting countries of the concerns about china. for example, donald trump launched a trade war because of what the former us president said, we're china is unfair practices. britain and several western nations have banned the chinese telecoms company while away from the networks because of concerns that the chinese government agents could infiltrate the equipment for spine. when the canadian police arrested, while the executive may 1. so, at washington's request placed in china swiftly detained. 2 canadians, all have since been released, and australia angered beijing by demanding an international investigation into the origins of private 19. china is warning the full boycotting nations that they will pay a price. but you do all the way shit. i want to point out that asian winter olympics gains is the stage for winter sports or any act that attempts to politicize sports with the name of human rights and freedom violates the spirit of the olympic charter on china. is firmly opposed to

the alright, let's bring in, i guess, from sol in south cryptic to t o is political sciences affiliated with the cold war project at the university of cambridge here in del ross griffin is the middle east editor of the international journal of the history of sports and from portland in the state of oregon, we have jewels book of chair of the pacific universities politics and government department is also form a professional and olympics and will welcome to you all back to you. i'd like to start with you 1st and so if i make this boy caught, is it driven by a real objection to chinese human rights abuses, or is it all about countries, individual spots with china? well, i think there has always been genuine concerns about human rights with, with china in particular. and this is, has been if you'd like the constant issue inside on us relations

in swell. 572 when the us and china normalized relations. but having said that, this human rights concern did not prevent americans from establishing good relations with china. you know, in joe, the cole co, in the latter part of the cold war, and right up to that on a truck and ministration. so the question is, where is why now and why make a big issue over human rights? because they have co exist quite quite well with pass. well, i will say 4050 years even though human rights has been a constant. so i think the heart of the issue is not just about human rights, but really jewel, political, tough little between 1st of all, the chinese and the americans. and secondly, there are domestic, consider political constitution on the part of the,

by the ministration. this is due to the fact that the republicans had been going very strong, criticizing the, by the ministration for not going harder on china. so that by the ministration wants to be seen doing something to confirm the chinese. and i think they picked this up on the issue is one of the things that they feel that they, they could actually do it. right. you know, fan or criticisms show and it draw, jules broke up. what's your thought? why now? why make such a big issue if, if she writes, when you know it's often just ignored? i think that's exactly right that the olympics provide an opportunity to speak out about what are gross been rights violations in china. in the united states, essentially, china has become a bipartisan punching bag. both republicans and democrats are beating up on china right now. it's a very fraught moment. i mean, the u. s. defense department needs no assistance whatsoever. when it comes to the

political demon ization of the country and i think that's what we're seeing right now. back in 2018 there was a pole. busy that was done to assess in the united states what they believed. people here believed the threat of china was and it was only 48 percent in 2018. thought that china was a threat earlier this year, yet another pull up to 67 percent. and so the olympics provide the huge spectacle that the entire world watches. but we're seeing something wider happening here in the united states. what i think is argue, arguably the political demon ization of the united states that it has serious potential ramifications. roles, griffin, i'm wondering what degree this is this can have an effect. anyway. i mean, how much of a statement is being made by government officials not attending in this way? because, you know, after all, it's the athletes that count here and they're still going in many ways, these kinds of boy costs are very much symbolic thing by letting the athletes pull

to the u. s. for example, they still get that moral victory if you want to look at it from meditech perspective, which is so often used to judge how successful nation is in comparison to others. we often see some of the games. so by telling there are these, you cannot go, you're penalizing or punishing these people, but they're nice for years to train for these games, but by letting them go, you get that good grace, all your speech competing. and you also get the possibility of asserting the ideological dominance, or you can actually win. and by suggesting a boy cost you are raising awareness of the alleged issues. are you concerned that the rest are just to heat up? so we're looking at it in terms of those to listen to microns words. there are a few minutes ago and not lead only boy carter, one that pulls the athlete out of the games is one that is very,

very clumsy move. but this one has a possibility of showing or applying a bit of finesse to the situation that would allow us to win on both sides. yeah, china says it doesn't care, does, doesn't it? and, you know, as far as they're concerned, victor g l, there is already some impact, isn't it? because a child is not achieving what hope to gain from this and that is positive p r. of course, right now, or anybody is talking about is human rights abuses. and not sport. well, they have been talking about germany issue for a long while now. and so it's not just this couple of months. i think in so many chinese concerns. it's this couple of years has always been about damage control, not so much volt, propagating and building a positive image. so this is one of the, you know, considerations in, in china now in it, regardless of what the say the americans and japan and whoever else is going to see what they like. so, but it's not only so much the administration,

so this countries, it's also the social media and the, you know, the mass media in general because these countries have a free president, the chinese have no control. but so i think the chinese have lashley, i would, i would say not put, building a positive image abroad in this country's a top parity. but at the same time, i think i want to highlight the chinese have a 0 covey policy. so they are somehow concerned about them, food flaps of lush number of people coming to china the same time. so the ambivalent about is the one to host a successful and picked by the same time, the one to limit the number of foreigners coming into the country. all right, well we've had boy coats before limit boycott set on new but they've always involve the athletes themselves in 1980 the u. s. pulled it's athletes out of the moscow summer olympics and protest against the soviet invasion of afghanistan, the soviet union. and its allies got their own back on the americans by, by cutting the following lympics held in los angeles in 1984 at old. while new

zealand had said it is not sending officials to the beijing olympics due to pandemic health concerns. and japan is among other countries reported to be considering diplomatic boycotts of the games. russ griffin, these boys caught soon when they've involved athletes as well, what kind of success have they had in implementing change down the line? it's a tough for the color is very subjective. one part of the games, i think everybody already caused it to the most famous boycotts in 1900 in 1084 as you mentioned there. but in terms of effectiveness, the 1976 games in montreal is it often goes under the radar where you had and he was 28 african nations who boy taught the montreal games because new zealand does just mentioned a few seconds ago in back and wrote the tour in africa that summer and isn't the week of the sweater riots in may or june of that year. and it was one of the more effective boys costs in the us. it rates

a huge amount of awareness about what it was actually happening in africa. and it gave a very strong impression of united africa against apartheid. and that was one of the few successful boy cut melinta games to actually achieve anything you look at the 2 later ones. one's immediately following the america and 6465 countries boy taught those games. but still many athletes from like britain or australia, they participated in the games anyway, underly flag guard under national committee. so they still attended the americans were the only ones who really withheld their axis, punishing their seats essentially. and it didn't achieve anything in the greater scheme of things saw the invasion of afghanistan didn't finish the 900 years or something. so it's aimed were political aims were optimally a failure. but if you go back to the history of the olympics,

there has been various costs or suggestions and not many of them actually achieved anything of knows anything under the work. so so joe broke up, is it likely that this kind of more, perhaps subtle approach could work, could apply pressure on the chinese government likely to make a difference? well i would 1st say china boycotted the 1980 olympics in the soviet union as well . and also china boycotted in 1964, the tokyo games. and so all the sudden they very much change their tune and saying these days that the olympics shouldn't be political. well, they were very political for china back in that time frame in terms of moving forward. i mean, i think what's interesting to keep an eye on is, will countries expand the diplomatic boycott into a potential athlete? boycott? athletes are very much in the middle on this one. and if you think about it, who put them there, the international olympic committee put the athletes in this very difficult

position. if athletes were to lead a boycott in beijing, which i don't anticipate, but it's certainly a possibility that could be extraordinarily powerful and effective if governments as what happened in 198-1084 decided not to send their athletes that could be a real done after all, here in the united states and other countries were athletes did not go to the olympics. there's a real sour taste in the mouth. you have numerous olympians with asterisks next to their names and they're feeling pretty crummy about it. and they've been quite vociferous about feeling crummy about it. and so i don't anticipate that, but the diplomatic boycott that we see in place allows for countries to prevent china from engaging what we call these days sports washing using these big sports mega bands to try to launder your international reputation on the world stage. in other words, scrub away the human rights violations and try to look legitimate on the world stage. and the diplomatic boycott has been effective about talking about rights violations instead of how wonderful china is for hosting this mega thing is,

jewel macro. the french president says, you shouldn't politicize the olympics, but how can you not? when you have stories, i'm not only back to human rights abuses, but the current story of, of the tennis stopped from sway. who's been censored? absolutely. well, 1st of all, when my crone says we shouldn't intersect politics and sports, we might want to keep in mind that paris is slated to host the 2024 right olympics, the summer olympics. and so they might be a little reticent to speak out on this in order to stay inside of the good graces of the international olympic committee. which, by the way, the international committee has said from its inception that politics in sports don't mix. but that has been a fairy tale from day one. after all, the plucky french aristocrat, baron pierre, to cooper time, who assembled the 1st international emperor committee, brought together a political power brokers and knew he, he understood they needed their support for the olympics to survive. skinner, ahead to 1936 when hitler used the olympics of the trampoline for his invasion of,

of europe. think ahead to the cold war. we've already been talking about where the olympics were essentially a proxy battle zone for the united states and soviet union and all of their allies and satellites all the way till today, where it's obviously political. so the olympics are political through and through. and anybody who tells you otherwise is probably milking the olympic cow with both hands. in other words, what i'm saying is they're making their money off the olympic games. right. and say, ross griffin shouldn't be more onerous on the international olympic committee to manage it. and perhaps it should be more about not awarding big events like this to countries with, with say, poor, poor track record in human rights. yeah. but the i o. c is a, it's not a neutral broker. and all of this, i'm a jesse mentioned the 1946 games in berlin. the i c has a track record of giving games to various nations, but a dubious background was often forgotten and history is that the games after the

games wanted to call him that we're going to japan in 1941. and for the break of world war 2. so with a lot of events nowadays, there are other concerns other than sports washing. what's going on in the background? a lot of nations, lot of cities that are once again what they can't afford them. i think the bidding for the paris games was almost shambolic for a finish because a lot of countries are lot of cities that pulled out wrong, being one that was much of the other where they had plebiscites that were people are saying, we don't want to spend millions upon millions on these games when we need schools need a role to meet hostetter, improved or build or infrastructure improve. and so the feel is not allowing for countries that are willing to put up their hand and host these kinds of games. because y'all, do you think there's a split now in the, in the way the west wants to deal with china? because as far as this is concerned, as distinctly not a unified approach ship,

us top bras might not be attending, but the un secretary general has been violated and he's signaling that he's going to turn the knee of the games. i wouldn't say that it's split it, it has always been to this case, you know what the united states is, the most powerful country in the world. but it still is unable to get its way all the time. there are many issues that some all mold or some of the an ice willing to go along in some issues that are not willing to go along. so in this case, like i said, you know, the francy frances, obvious, the thing, a different thing, but i suspect the french are reacting to the previous episode where the, you, as the explained, the french in the australian submarine deal and the french president, it's now trying to, you know, i wouldn't say it's a payback, but it's trying to say something very different to show. it's only one kind of leadership within the western block. but there are other allies, u. s. l,

i said, are also saying differently. so if you look at the japanese and the south koreans be so pretty ambivalent about following the us into the diplomatic boy called japanese prime minister has not actually, as actually said, it would take the national interest in consideration. what this usually means is that you still thinking there of course the voices with in japan from the conservative party, the o d. p. they have been you know, whipping up using the chinese as a punching bag for the last good. i would say 9 years enjoy hobby has come, all the previous family says come up very strongly saying that your pension joined a boy. he caught but he sheet. i know i think he, he wants to do. he wants to have a good relations with the united states by the same time. he is very mindful of the fragility of japan china relations. and i think what he wants to prevent the religion is from you or anything. when he comes to the korean is the korean,

the south koreans have a different idea with a host of the previous winter games. so the korean government has actually come out of saying that south korea has enrolled at the host of the previous games. it, it's signaling that it's unlike either join the boy called or do they might be pressured into sending not so senior dedication. we're not in your officials to paging. so i guess the point is that different countries, even if i lived through the united states, might actually react differently to this, you know, whatever proposal that the us puts on the table. so, jewels china is pretty angry about this, saying it's going to fight back and resolute countermeasures it talks of, and companies will pay the price for their mistaken acts. what do you think baze reaction will be? how do you think they can fight back? well, they had a lot of measures at their disposal given their economic power right now, as well as their influence around the world banks,

through their belt and road initiative. they have a lot of people that have endeared themselves to china. and we shouldn't forget the fact that they have made a lot of friends over the years. so yes, economic sanctions definitely seem in the realm of possibilities. you want to keep it inside of the olympics. fear there is the los angeles olympics coming up in 2020 age, which they have already intimated that they might try to do a diplomatic boycott in return. so they have a lot of possibilities that they're measure. you know, one thing that i think is important to put into the frame is what mr. griffin mentioned before about the role of the international limpid committee. i mean, after all, they have all these wonderful ideas inside of their olympic charter about human rights and freedom and the dignity of the individual which are being basically thrown out the window right now in their selection of aging and their backing of beijing all the way through the olympics, given the human rights abuses that are happening there. and i think as we move forward, it will be interesting to see whether the verbal volleys between the united states and china, distract from the fact that the international olympic committee created the

original sin here. which is to say giving the olympics to china even though they knew full well. there had not been advancements in human rights since china hosted the games back in 2008 rossi. they can be any impact on this as far as the eyes is concerned. from the boy got to serve you mean? yeah. will he offer it? i don't think so. i think i think he will go to whoever is willing to horse the games and pay for the games. the seems to be very, very selective in how they deal with protest. thinking back just the tokyo games where you are, the american shop, or ribbon saunders. she made her process for the black live matter movement and there was no real. even though she was threatened with discipline reaction, there was nothing that came against her for that process, nor should there have been. but the see seems to be very selective and hold apply.

it's measures in all cases. and there's very willing to turn a blind eye to certain broker, certain people, certain nations like a lot of these trans national sporting organizations. i think they're very, very flexible and how they are apply their policies, evicted cheating. ultimately, this is more about the collision of, of 2 world views, more a reflection of a real world crisis that is ongoing right now between, you know, supervisor. yes and no i'm, i'm very worried about the trajectory of the us china relations. because the kind of mary tease we among the western block, and of course i read the papers every day, new york times, wall street journal book, reuters, that kind of thing for the thing is, you know, it's, it's, well, there's a little shorter there by the same time that a lot of people using china is a political football. but i think that if you, i mean i pay attention to what is being said in chinese,

on the chinese side too. and it's, we see a reflection of what is being done in the west and press the chinese actually doing it. so if you put a chinese foreign chinese discussion, chinese trade groups, it is the kind the exact same kind of the migration that is going on. and it's really worrying because we actually have parallel universe. i'm not sure if that's the correct correct and the use but to step the fed genuine separation of you know, the global community that is brewing. and i think that that is actually the concept . and finally, if this does gain traction, i guess we should focus elsewhere. and that is that the corporate sponsors of events like this of, you know, chris gutter at b and b would they be reassessing their involvement and a huge event like this. i can give you the honest answer i'd give you the corporate answer. honest answer. i think a lot of these companies are motivated by the bottom line, and i don't think there is a hope and heads are ever going to isolate market is biggest china and they're just

play ball. they will turn the same blind that the likes of the i o. c. as in many countries in the past, 506078 years. and they're just calling on regards. a lot of these companies might think this, the phrase is bar to signaling and stuff like that. but at the end of the day, they are private corporations, shareholders or whatever. and they will be on the hoardings of the winter olympics next february, next year. when these games happen, they will be with the see to to content or judge this been a terrific discussion. do appreciate your time. thanks very much. david join insights. all i guess. ross griffin and jules, or go, thanks very much. and thank you for watching. you can see the whole program again anytime by visiting our website out to 0 dot com. and for further discussion, you can go to our facebook page, that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. and you can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a j inside door for me,

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