2022 Winter Olympics

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, it goes without saying that each of the American athletes competing in the Olympics this year is the best in their event. Many of them have dedicated their entire lives to their sports in the hope that they might have this opportunity to represent the United States at the Olympic Games. They have earned their spots on Team USA, and I wish them the best as they compete against other athletes from around the world.

But make no mistake, Beijing 2022 is no ordinary Olympics. Just a 4- hour flight from where the Games are being held, China has imprisoned more than a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps. These Chinese citizens are prisoners--political prisoners--in their own country. Their crime? Maintaining a vibrant Muslim culture that doesn't fit the mold that Beijing wants to impose on China's more than 1.4 billion people. The very same government that is hosting the Olympics this week is putting these innocent people in labor camps and subjecting them to forced sterilization, forced labor, and physical and psychological torture.

One of the few things that President Trump and President Biden agree on is that what China is doing to its Uighur population amounts to genocide.

Last November, one of the most famous athletes in China, Peng Shuai, posted on social media that a high-ranking politician in the Chinese Communist Party had sexually assaulted her. This wasn't just any politician; he was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and the face of China's successful effort to land the 2022 Olympics. He even met with the president of the International Olympic Committee at least once.

Speaking out about someone like this is dangerous in a country like China. Peng Shuai knew that, but I don't think she expected what came next. Less than 20 minutes after she posted her accusation, her existence had been scrubbed from the internet. Any mention of her name was restricted. For a while, the Communist Party banned discussion of hundreds of other key words, even words as general as ``tennis.'' She disappeared from the public eye for months, and the only appearances that she has been allowed to make since have been scripted and supervised by the CCP.

If this is how China treats its own people, I think it is fair to ask: What kind of risks are our athletes facing as they participate in the Olympic Games?

To protest China's miserable human rights record, the United States instituted a diplomatic boycott, and American officials will not be present for these Games; neither will officials representing many of our allies, like Canada or the United Kingdom. That is the right decision. We shouldn't pretend that everything is fine in China just because the IOC chose them to host the Olympics.

As far as the committee is concerned, they have made it very clear that China's money is worth more to them than the rights of the world's athletes. They had years to plan for these Olympics, but they still chose not to adopt any rules to protect the human rights of Olympians while they are in China. Instead, competitors are required to follow local laws limiting free expression, privacy, and other basic freedoms.

Before they ever set foot in China, athletes and journalists were required to download an intrusive smartphone app, supposedly to track COVID-19 infections. Experts say that China and other malicious actors could exploit flaws in the app's design to go beyond that and spy on athletes in many other ways, both during the Olympics and long after they are over.

The CCP's app also contains a list of more than 400 illegal words that they could use to censor athletes' conversations.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has gone as far as to tell American athletes to ``assume that every device and every communication, transaction, and online activity will be monitored.'' Many other nations have issued similar warnings.

This all could have been avoided. We didn't have to host a unifying event like the Olympics in a country that thinks the book ``1984'' is an instruction manual. The IOC chose to have China host the Olympics anyway. They chose to ignore these and many other shameless human rights abuses Beijing engages in every single day. They could have required China to respect the basic liberties athletes enjoy in the United States and other Western countries, but they didn't. The next time a host country is chosen, it is important that the IOC pick any of the dozens of democracies around the world.

The more than 200 athletes on Team USA earned their places at the Olympics with years of hard work and sacrifice. I do wish them the best, and I pray that they stay safe while they are away from home.

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