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Jen Psaki: The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses. The athletes on team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's White House, press secretary, Jen Psaki, back in December, explaining that the United States, along with the United Kingdom and Canada are staging a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Chief among the concerns raised by these nations is the Chinese government's oppressive treatment of the Uyghur Muslim community, which officials from the U.S. have labeled genocide. For more on this, we're joined now by Yasmeen Serhan, staff writer at The Atlantic. Yasmeen it's great to have you here.

Yasmeen Serhan: Thanks for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Remind us who the Uyghurs are and what's been happening to them in China.

Yasmeen Serhan: The Uyghurs are a Turkic, mostly Muslim ethnic minority that are native to China's Northwestern Xinjiang province. Their population totals, I think about 11 million people in Xinjiang, of which it's estimated that approximately one million are currently being detained in what can only really be described as concentration camps, which is where they're subject to political indoctrination, forced sterilization and even torture. Human rights groups say that Uyghurs’ crimes that land them in these camps often amount to things like praying, wearing a headscarf or even having a relative overseas.

Now this is, as far as I think any of us are aware of the largest scale detention of any sort of ethnic or religious minority group really since World War II. It’s for this reason that the United States, along with several other governments around the world have labeled the repression of the Uyghurs a genocide. Now it's worth noting, of course, that the Chinese government disputes these allegations. Though they don't actually dispute the existence of these camps. They just prefer to call them reeducation camps, which are aimed as they say, eradicating religious extremism and violent terrorism in Xinjiang.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, so I know that the US is obviously among the nations who are conducting a diplomatic boycott of these Beijing Olympics. But when you make this point about concentration camps as the actual backdrop of the Olympics, are we missing an opportunity here to truly draw world attention to this, by still allowing the athletes to participate?

Yasmeen Serhan: It's a tricky-- That topic is definitely subject to a lot of I think debate, this question of do we punish Olympic athletes who sometimes only have a really once in a lifetime or once in a career opportunity to perform at an Olympic games. The U.S. has fully boycotted Olympics in the past. And I think that the verdict certainly among Olympic experts and commentators that I've spoken to is that they don't feel that it's right for athletes to miss out. But by that same token, activists and critics of these games in particular argue that we're really just normalizing China's human rights abuses. That a diplomatic boycott, while symbolic, obviously certainly registers how governments like the US and others are feeling about China's human rights abuses, that it doesn't really do anything meaningfully to hold China accountable.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yasmeen, we've been talking a little bit about the US and about nations that are on a diplomatic boycott. What nations are not making even a diplomatic point of this issue?

Yasmeen Serhan: Well, the vast majority of them I think is the simple way to put it. It would be easier to name the countries that are engaged in a diplomatic boycott versus the ones that aren't. I think what really has stood out to me in the process of my reporting on this is just how silent the majority Muslim countries have been. If standing up for the Uyghurs was an Olympic sport, Muslim majority countries wouldn't even make the podium. Despite the fact that these countries, who I should mention the Muslim world is a very diverse place, spanning various countries, cultures, languages.

These countries have found on numerous occasions to speak out with one voice, whether it's to speak about the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar or Israel's occupation of the Palestinians or any other litany of issues that have affected the Muslim world in some way. But for some reason, which I get into in my reporting, Muslim majority countries just don't have it in them to say anything about what's happening to the Uyghurs and in fact, even in some cases defended China's treatment.

Melissa Harris-Perry: What is that reason that for some reason?

Yasmeen Serhan: The biggest reason for this is Beijing’s growing influence. China is not only one of the most important trading partners in the Muslim world, but crucially, it's also a big investor. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, which is its global infrastructure project, China has invested billions of dollars across plenty of majority Muslim countries. In doing so, the Chinese government has not only, I think, secured its influence, but I think it's also purchased a lot of leverage. As a result, these governments, even if perhaps maybe their populations feel that their governments should do more, they don't really see much of a benefit in terms of calling their Chinese partners out. Certainly not in public.

People like Pakistan's Prime Minister, Imran Khan say that they have conversations with their partners and allies in China in the background, but you would never hear him say anything even lightly critical about China's treatment of the Uyghurs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Tell me about the Belt and Road Initiative.

Yasmeen Serhan: The Belt and Road Initiative is this massive infrastructure project that China kicked off in 2013, in which it's effectively invested hundreds of billions of dollars around the world into things such as ports, railways, energy projects. These can be seen all across Asia, Africa, and Europe. The goal of this seemingly is not only to expand infrastructure in many of these countries, particularly in these developing countries that don't necessarily have a lot of these resources, but I also think crucially to establish influence and establish leverage. I think that Muslim majority countries, behavior vis-à-vis the Uyghurs is evidence that that's working. They don't really see any sort of economic or political incentive to speak out.

Melissa Harris-Perry: We very recently did a deep dive really thinking about the 20 years of Guantanamo Bay. One of the things that most struck me was one of our guests said it is a prison for Muslim men. Given that the US has that own stain on our own record around this, I wonder about how it plays on an international stage for the US to be representing this diplomatic concern relative to the Uyghurs while, by the way, continuing to operate the detention center at Guantanamo.

Yasmeen Serhan: That's a really important and good question. Look, I think hypocrisy and, and that selective concern for these people is a really important issue. This is something that I brought up in my piece, but a lot of the majority Muslim countries, particularly the repressive ones, they have their own human rights abuses that they've been dealing with. They may not even see much of a point in calling out China's human rights abuses lest they be accused of the pot calling the kettle black. I think that this potentially could be a similar scenario here where I think China, similar to Russia, I think their officials love to use Twitter to their advantage. I'm sure there's probably a litany of tweets of whataboutism and asking, “Well, you’ve done X, Y, and Z.”

That isn't to discount of course the US’ own abuses on this front, particularly with Guantanamo. I think it's just a real shame for the Muslims in this world, particularly the Uyghurs who are counting-- and I'm not just talking about the Uyghurs who are in Xinjiang. I'm talking about Uyghurs in the diaspora and many of whom I've spoken to for previous reporting. They're really counting on the international community who they know have known full well for years what's happening in Xinjiang.

They've told their stories. They’ve told the stories of their relatives, and yet even today the best that we can hope for around an Olympic games is a diplomatic boycott, which I think as we've already established can really only do so much.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yasmeen Serhan is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Thanks so much for joining us.

Yasmeen Serhan: Thank you, Melissa. It's always a pleasure.

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