Radio Free Asia (RFA) Chinese Edition recently reported that the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee swiftly passed the American Values and Security in International Athletics Act, proposed by Michael McCaul, Republican senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Act includes a call for boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics, a condemnation of China and the Hong Kong government’s human rights violations, and a requirement for the Secretary of State to warn the participants in the international games held in communist countries or countries with human rights violation concerns 180 days ahead of the games. The Act intends to inform the American athletes of the games host country’s human rights, privacy and security risks. A similar bill passed unanimously in the previous term of the House, but did not survive the Senate. The House is expected to pass this new Act very quickly. The Beijing Winter Olympics is coming closer. Many U.S. lawmakers proposed bills and wrote to the White House calling for a boycott. Senator Rick Scott, who proposed a similar bill in the Senate asked the White House to discuss China’s human rights records and called the International Olympics Committee for a change of location of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Source: RFA Chinese, February 25, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/cm-02252021143107.html