Rep. Chris Smith Wants Winter 2022 Beijing Olympics Moved

MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ — Monmouth County's Republican Congressman, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ4) continues his push to have the upcoming winter 2022 Olympics moved from Beijing, where they are scheduled to be held.

His push has nothing to do with coronavirus (cases were first documented in Wuhan, China), but rather because of allegations the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide and forced labor against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.

Both Presidents Trump and Biden have used the term "genocide" to describe Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. The Chinese Communist Party has denied these allegations.

The winter Olympics are scheduled to go from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20, 2022.

At a bipartisan congressional hearing on Tuesday of this week, Smith pressed corporate sponsors — including Coca-Cola, Visa, Airbnb, Intel and Procter & Gamble — of the 2022 Winter Olympics to move the games, with Smith repeatedly calling them the "Genocide Olympics."

"The message needs to be sent very clearly and unambiguously to China that they cannot hide this genocide and forcing Muslims to make goods," said Smith on Tuesday in the hearing. "How about moving the venue? They are able to get away — literally — with murder."

Smith is not the only New Jersey congressman calling to move this winter's Olympics: Several members of Congress have called for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China, including Somerset County Congressman Tom Malinowski (D-NJ7), a liberal Democrat.

Malinowski was born in Communist Poland during the height of the Cold War.

“There’s no such thing as non-political games — dictatorships like China host the Olympics to validate their standing as normal and respected countries even as they continue to commit crimes against their people,” said Congressman Malinowski in June. “This is a clear signal to the International Olympic Committee that we’re fed up with its silence about China’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs."

“Knowing what we know now about the Beijing ‘Genocide Olympics,’ should the Games be moved to another country and city?” Smith asked at Tuesday's hearing.

He asked this of representatives from Coca-Cola, Visa, Airbnb, Intel and Procter & Gamble, each of whom is a corporate sponsor of the Games and is expected to advertise and send executives for next year’s event.

“We don’t have a position on if [the Games are] going to be moved or delayed. We will follow these athletes wherever they compete," said Coca-Cola representative Paul Lalli.

“If the athletes go to Pyongyang in North Korea, is that okay too?” Smith asked. "I mean, seriously your voice matters. We want your voice to be heard. And if you say, 'Hey world, Coca-Cola thinks it's wrong,' that will be listened to. Can't you say that?"

"We do make our voice heard every day," said Lalli. "We don't make a decision on the host location."

“We have no responsibility in the site selection," said Visa’s representative Andrea Fairchild at the hearing.

Watch Tuesday's hearing here; Smith talks at about the 2-hour, 10-minute mark:

Smith represents the Fourth Congressional District, which covers nearly all of Monmouth County, including towns such as Holmdel, part of Middletown, Colts Neck, Rumson, Manalapan, Freehold, Red Bank and Wall Township. The Fourth District also reaches into Jackson and Lakewood in Ocean County and Hamilton and Robbinsville in Mercer County.

Smith has been asking to have the upcoming winter Olympics moved for years, since 2018 when Beijing was first chosen as the host city.

In October 2018, Smith wrote this letter with Senator Marco Rubio to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, asking the committee “to review and ultimately reassign the location of the 2022 Winter Olympics given credible reporting of the mass, arbitrary internment of one million or more Uyghurs or other Muslim ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and other ongoing human rights abuses by the Chinese government.”

Smith said in a statement this week, “Unfortunately, for many American corporations, it is business as usual when it comes to China.”

Smith has been banned from China over the years and is the only U.S. member of Congress to have been targeted with sanctions by the Chinese government.

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