Britain may boycott 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as diplomatic relations with China head for a freeze

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MINISTERS may boycott Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics as diplomatic relations with China head for a freeze. 

Rows over Covid-19, Hong Kong and Huawei may see royals and the Government snub the event.

The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing

The stance would mirror that at the World Cup in Russia 2018 two months after the Novichok gas attack in Salisbury. 

A senior minister said: “Awkward conversations are having to be had about it.”

On Tuesday night a government source insisted that no decision had yet been made.

However ex-Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith urged the Government to lobby the International Olympic Committee to change the venue.

He said: “China is dictatorial, aggressive and intolerant. I don’t see how any self-respecting British citizen could go there to endorse this regime.

“From the torture and sterilisation of Uighur Muslims, to the smashing of the Sino-British agreement over Hong Kong.”

Alan Mendoza, of foreign policy think-tank The Henry Jackson Society, added: “Until China starts playing by the rules, the only salute we should be giving them is a two-fingered one.”

Iain Duncan Smith said China was ‘dictatorial and aggressive’

Big Air Shougang, the venue for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing

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