[Politico] As President Joe Biden weighs whether to impose a diplomatic boycott on next year’s Winter Olympics in China, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill want to force his hand.Biden is facing bipartisan pressure from Congress to snub China at the 2022 games as some senators seek to force a diplomatic boycott as part of annual defense policy legislation hitting the Senate floor this week. The goal, lawmakers say, is to call attention to China’s human rights record, including what the Biden administration has characterized as a genocide of religious minorities in Xinjiang.
But House and Senate leaders are cool to the idea of imposing a diplomatic boycott on the games as part of the defense policy bill — even as support is growing on both sides of the aisle to send a message to Beijing.
"I think it’s a very difficult issue, and it would be tough to get it done in that way," House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said in a brief interview. "As a general rule, I don’t think boycotting the Olympics is a good approach."
"I don’t think we’ll get it done," added Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who supports a diplomatic boycott. His GOP counterpart on the panel, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, offered a similar assessment: "I don’t think there’s a consensus one way or the other at this point."
Biden is expected to heed a recommendation from his advisers to bar U.S. government-sponsored travel to China for the Olympics, according to a Washington Post report Tuesday. The Biden administration has declined to comment on that report.