China has said Australia, Britain and the US will pay a price for their “mistaken acts” in deciding not to send government delegations to the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February, in the latest warning demonstrating China’s escalating diplomatic tensions with the US and its major allies.
The US was the first to announce a boycott, saying on Monday that its government officials would not attend the February Games because of China’s human rights “atrocities”, weeks after talks aimed at easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
“The United States, Britain and Australia have used the Olympics platform for political manipulation,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, told a regular news conference. “They will have to pay the price for their mistaken acts.”
The EU is considering its response to the growing calls for a boycott. On Thursday France’s education and sports minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, said in a radio interview that Paris would not follow Washington’s lead.
