Chinese Propaganda and the Genocide Olympics
We should have boycotted.
[Editor’s note: Watch Not My Party every week on Snapchat.]
Tim Miller: Smash. Smash. Smash.
Reporter voiceover: San Francisco-born and -bred Eileen Gu . . . has joined Team China.
Miller: Ew. Pass.
Homer Simpson: How could you?
Miller: This is “Not My Party,” brought to you by The Bulwark. So we’re in the second week of the Beijing Olympics, and I’m feeling pretty grossed out by the whole deal.
Cosmo Kramer: There’s something in the air.
Miller: Frankly, I think we should have just boycotted Beijing to protest the continued atrocities of the Chinese government.
Randy Marsh from South Park: Fuck the Chinese government.
Miller: But of course, we haven’t. So I can’t be mad at the American athletes for going and kicking ass. But I do think the politicians should have stepped up and forced them to sit this one out.
Marge Simpson: You’re staying home.
Miller: While it was good that the Biden administration did this—
Jen Psaki: The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
Miller: —in my opinion, they didn’t go far enough.
Olympic torch carrier from King of the Hill: That is weak!
Miller: China’s tyrannical behavior is just too egregious, and we’re giving the regime a massive propaganda win. And for what? So the corporate sponsors can sell some ads?
Annie Edison (Alison Brie on Community): No. I mean, maybe.
Miller: Because you can’t tell me we’re in it for the athletes. Some who went over there were put in a horrific COVID quarantine, where they were fed prison food for days on end.
Kim Meylemans (Belgian skeleton racer): I’m not sure I can handle fourteen more days.
Miller: And the rest are living in what they’ve described as a “Squid Game vibe.” And if the Olympic committee actually cared about athletes, they wouldn’t have scheduled the games in a country that disappeared one of their own. This is what happened to Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis player who blew the whistle on sexual assault by the regime. She resurfaced weeks later with a creepy state-approved coverup story.
CNN reporter: The IOC did not give CNN access to that video.
Miller: But instead of dishing out punishment for this, the Olympic Committee was complicit in the lie.
Mark Adams (International Olympic Committee spokesman): I don’t think it’s up for us to be able to judge.
Janson (Aidan Gilen in The Scorch Trials): Whose side are you on?
Miller: So why should the U.S. be a part of this? The rose emoji leftists and Donald Trump offer one explanation. They might not agree on much, but they’re aligned when it comes to moral relativism. After all, the U.S. does bad stuff too, right?
Donald Trump: You think our country’s so innocent?
Hasan Piker: America is worse than ISIS.
Miller: This false equivalence is horseshit. Yeah, the American state can act appallingly. Look at the recent no-knock warrant that resulted in the death of yet another black man, Amir Locke.
Andre Locke: My son . . . I’ve seen it happen too many times.
Miller: But our government’s failings are not even in the same universe as the systematic oppression being employed by the Chinese Communist Party. Their regime is conducting a genocide and running re-education internment camps for the Uighur Muslims on a scale unlike anything in the world. People like Harvard lecturer Rahile Dawut have been disappeared.
Akida Polat (daughter of Rahile Dawut): I will keep asking the Chinese government . . . where is my mother?
Miller: There are forced abortions and sterilizations. And U.N. human rights experts have received credible allegations that the Chinese are harvesting Uighur organs. This is sick Nazi shit. And the Holocaust Museum agrees.
Cheyenne Lee (Nichole Sakura on Superstore): They would know.
MIller: But when China props up one Uighur athlete as a propaganda tool during the opening ceremonies, the media echoes their spin.
Savannah Guthrie (voiceover): To choose an athlete from the Uighur minority . . . it is an in-your-face response to those Western nations, including the U.S.
Kevin McCallister: Gross.
Miller: And while we’re rage-tweeting about the supposed censorship in the U.S., in China they literally interrogate and manacle people who criticize the regime. The CCP has harassed women’s rights activists, cracked down on Me Too, freedoms in Hong Kong are being revoked, and Tibetan children are subjected to a state-sponsored cultural conversion therapy that prevents them from learning their language and traditions.
Luiz (bulldog from Heroes): That’s messed up.
Miller: The government bans websites, and social media posts, and movies. That oh-so-strongman, Chairman Xi, won’t let Winnie the Pooh be aired in the country because some people said he looked like him.
Pam Beesly: They’re the same picture.
Winnie the Pooh: Oh, bother.
Miller: And recently this stuffed-with-fluff femboy banned all sissy men from TV. I assume to protect himself from the bad thoughts.
Camille Engelson (Allison Scagliotti on Stitchers): Adorable.
Miller: And oh yeah, I haven’t even mentioned that the Chinese government covered up the deadly f*** pandemic while it escaped from their shores killing millions worldwide.
Gunnar Fritz Stansson: Unforgivable.
Miller: So yeah, we should have boycotted. So hopefully in the future, the Olympic committee would’ve been forced to stick to countries that aren’t committing genocide.
Protester: China is a****!
Miller: But y’all knew I couldn’t finish this sports ep without talking about something a little more beautiful and pure. One year after winning only four games, take team of destiny Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase in your Super Bowl pool. I got Bengals 30, Rams 24. We’ll see you next week for more “Not My Party.” (Go Bengals!)