On Wednesday, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita issued the following statement regarding the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing, China.
Rokita
With the 2022 Winter Olympics set to begin on Friday, Feb. 4, I offer my strongest support for the 223 athletes who will represent the United States in Beijing this year.
I will also be loudly cheering for two of our own Hoosier skiers from Lawrenceburg, Nick Goepper and Justin Schoenefeld, who grew up skiing at Perfect North Slopes in southern Indiana. At just 27 years of age, Nick is already a two-time Olympic medalist, and he has an incredible opportunity to become the first native Hoosier to medal at three Olympics in more than a century. I wish you both the best of luck!
While I am excited to root for American athletes to bring home the gold, I continue to have grave concerns about the country that will be hosting the Olympics.
As we speak, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to show aggression toward Taiwan and enslave more than one million Uyghurs against their will. They are actively robbing U.S. companies of our intellectual property, stealing our patents, and then attempting to replace U.S. firms in the global marketplace using this stolen technology. Moreover, to this day, they remain unwilling to allow for any transparent investigation into the origins of the China Virus.
This all comes just a few months after the CCP made Peng Shuai, a former No. 1-ranked doubles tennis player, disappear – simply because she publicly accused a former vice premier of China of sexual assault.
I hope that over the next few weeks, we can focus on the remarkable achievements of our athletes, their successes and their triumphs. But we must also remember that China is not our friend, they are our adversary, and until they start behaving differently, they should be treated as such.
On Friday, U.S. Senator Mike Braun released the following statement.
Braun
I wish the best of luck to the athletes competing on behalf of the United States in the 2022 Winter Olympics beginning today in Beijing. I am proud of their accomplishments and look forward to watching them succeed in this year’s Olympic games.
However, I remain disappointed in the International Olympic Committee for maintaining the decision to hold the Olympic games in a country that continually commits egregious human rights violations against its own citizens. The Chinese Communist Party must be held accountable for the censorship of its citizens and repeated repression of ethnic and religious minorities.