Why the IOC Doesn’t Deserve Gold for Its Olympics Campaign

While more than 1 million Uyghurs and other minorities suffer mass detention, forced labor and torture in Xinjiang in western China, many of the world’s greatest athletes competed in Beijing at the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Chinese Communist Party must be held accountable for such abuses, but so should the International Olympic Committee, which has frequently dismissed criticisms of China’s human rights record and shown more deference to autocratic regimes than concern for its own athletes.

Nury Turkel, attorney and senior fellow at Hudson Institute, noted troubling similarities between the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany and the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. “By refusing to relocate the Olympics,” she said, “the IOC has condoned the Uyghur genocide by allowing the Games to take place in the shadow of concentration camps once again.”

This blindness to human rights should come as no surprise. Activists sounded the alarm over similar concerns prior to the 2014 Winter Games in Russia, but those pleas fell on deaf ears. When the IOC decided not to ban any Russian athletes after the 2014 doping scandal, Nancy Armour of USA Today declared that the “International Olympic Committee has sold its soul.”

The IOC even seems unwilling to protect its athletes from Chinese surveillance or political intimidation. Thus, coaches have instructed athletes on how to stay safe in Beijing by using burner phones and not speaking out on political issues. The IOC has met these developments with radio silence.

Likewise, last year, the IOC kowtowed to the regime in the case of former Chinese Olympian Peng Shuai’s sexual assault allegations against a former Communist official. “It was typical IOC: take the Chinese Communist Party at its word despite all evidence to the contrary,” said Kelley Currie, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. Beijing rejected repeated external inquiries regarding Peng. Ultimately, it invited IOC President Thomas Bach and other IOC officials to a monitored video call with her; neither the video nor a transcript was made available. Bach and the IOC complied fully with this charade.

Perhaps most egregiously, when pressed to address evidence of genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang, the IOC refused to even meet with activist groups.

The IOC’s actions — or lack thereof — make a mockery of the Olympic spirit.

Fortunately, not everyone has proven to be so feckless. In an increasingly polarized political climate, the IOC’s neglect of athletes and burgeoning relationship with despots have done what few issues can: unite Washington.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, declared that the U.S. government had “an urgent moral duty to shine a bright light” on China’s human rights abuses, chastising the IOC and its corporate sponsors for turning a blind eye to support their bottom lines.

Representatives Michael Waltz, R-Fla., and Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., introduced a bill that would remove the IOC’s federal tax-exempt status. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced a similar bill in the Senate. Given that the IOC is based in Switzerland, the bills will have little practical effect, but they are a step in the right direction toward increasing scrutiny over IOC financing.

Congress should continue this momentum by holding investigations and hearings on IOC financing, as it has done previously for international sports bodies like FIFA. Lawmakers should also ask the IOC and its sponsors why they chose to green-light the Games despite various human rights concerns. The IOC is long overdue for such inquiries given that judiciaries in France and the United States have already implicated its officials in corruption.

Moreover, Washington should work with like-minded IOC members from the United States and abroad to reform the organization from within. Members typically make decisions behind closed doors and prior to voting, which, Maximilian Klein, representative of the independent German athletic association Athleten Deutschland, has described as a “legitimacy problem and the democratic deficit of the IOC leadership.” 

The insular nature of IOC politics was evident last year when the committee re-elected Bach with a vote of 93-1 and no opposition candidate on the ballot.

Working with existing members to change the culture of the IOC will be an uphill political battle but is one worth fighting. As it currently stands, voting members range from former athletes to businessmen and royal families, forming elite patronage networks across athletic, political and economic sectors. Existing members recruit new members perpetuating the external influence of autocrats and power brokers in the IOC. The United States should spearhead efforts to break this vicious cycle and restore credibility to the institution.

Even as the Olympics has wrapped up, it is imperative to hold the IOC accountable for its poor oversight of the Games. The IOC may have sold its soul, but with the help of Washington and its allies, it might yet be able to earn it back.