Curlers of the Chinese curling team play in a mixed test event for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics at the Water Cube on April 1, 2021 in Beijing.
Photo:
Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
When President Biden publicly lobbied Major League Baseball last week to move his All-Star Game out of Georgia, he no doubt thought he was on the side of the angels. But what will he do now with the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing?
Mr. Biden objects to Georgia’s new voting law as an “atrocity,” although it offers more opportunities to vote than New York and Delaware, among others. The president is so offended that he has asked a sports association to boycott a US state, inflict economic damage on the Atlanta area, and essentially smear the state legislature as bigots.
We can’t wait to see what the US president will say about voting rules in China. There are no lines at polling stations in the Middle Kingdom because there are no polling stations, no controversies about the absence of votes because there are no ballots. The country is governed by an executive of the Chinese Communist Party and the decisions are ratified by the rubber National People’s Congress that meets once a year.
Maybe Mr. Biden compare the voting rules in Georgia with those in the re-education camps in Xinjiang province. His own secretary of state says China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
He could send Rob Manfred as an emissary to investigate, as the MLB commissioner tries to expand his league’s activities in China, even if it boycotts a US state. Chinese President Xi Jinping allegedly told Mr. After all, have Manfred inspected the camps, and why not take fellow boycott enthusiast LeBron James to declare that the Uyghurs are cheerful in their work?
For the record, we are not lobbying for an Olympic boycott. It would punish American athletes while the games continued anyway. It’s an easy symbolism, while doing more to defend Taiwan or stop Chinese cyber theft is hard and really matters.
But Mr. Biden has linked himself to this stunt over Georgia. He will inevitably be asked why a law balancing voter access with the integrity of the ballot in a US state that voted for him in 2020 justifies a boycott, while authoritarian China deserves a political pass. The answer will be educational.
Magazine editorial report: Corporate CEOs join Joe Biden’s attacks on Peach State voting law. Image: Megan Varner / Getty Images
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Appeared in the April 5, 2021 print edition.