US denies Chinese media claims of trying to ‘maliciously disrupt and spoil’ Winter Olympics

The US has rejected claims made by China’s state-run media that it was “working on a plan” to push athletes to play passively in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing and “politicise the international sports event”.

The state-run China Daily newspaper made the claims in a report published on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

“The sources said the plan is to incite athletes from various countries to express their discontent toward China, play passively in competition and even refuse to take part,” the report said.

Washington would compensate the athletes involved in “the plan” and then mobilise resources to “protect the personal reputation” of these athletes, the report claimed.

“The sources stressed Washington’s plan is a new example of some anti-China forces in the United States attempting to politicize the sports and maliciously disrupt and spoil the Beijing Winter Olympic Games,” said the report, which did not give evidence for the claims.

The allegations, however, were rebuffed by the US.

“We were not and are not coordinating a global campaign regarding participation at the Olympics,” a US embassy spokesman told Reuters by email on Saturday.

“US athletes are entitled to express themselves freely in line with the spirit and charter of the Olympics, which includes advancing human rights,” the spokesman added.

The spokesman was referring to the US’s diplomatic boycott of the Games, in which the country would not send a government delegation to the event but would allow individual athletes from the country to participate.

The statement also hit back at China and repeated the US’s reason for boycotting the Games.

The spokesman said the Asian giant would continue to “mislead” the public so that it could “deflect attention from their egregious human rights record,” referring to the widely reported allegations of human rights abuse in the Xinjiang region.

The allegations by the state-run newspaper follow a number of other allegations made by China in recent weeks.

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi had earlier on Thursday demanded the US end its “interference” in the Winter Olympics in a phone call with his US counterpart Antony Blinken, reported the Associated Press.

The minister had also complained that the country had not altered its tough economic policies towards China.

China had last month said the UK, Canada and Australia, which are also diplomatically boycotting the Games, will “pay the price” for their “mistaken acts”.