Iain Duncan Smith says the UK should boycott the 2022 Chinese Winter Olympics after human rights violations

In an exclusive interview with GB News former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith called for the UK and other nations to boycott the 2022 Chinese Winter Olympics because of the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims and human rights violations.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith who is a co-chair and founder of the Inter-parliamentary alliance on China expressed a number of concerns with the Chinese Government including, breaching the international agreement on Hong-Kong and arresting peaceful democracy demonstrators, illegally occupying the South China Seas and placing Tibetan people in forced labour camps.

He describes the Chinese Government as a 'brutal regime' that ‘does not believe in the concept in any shape or form of Human Rights or rule of law’

Duncan Smith calls on the UK Government to take more decisive action and boycott the Chinese Winter Olympics that are coming in 2022.

The MPs comments come as the Biden administration is expected to announce this week that U.S. government officials will not attend the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, CNN reported on Sunday.

Those calling for a boycott are "grandstanding" and should stop "so as not to affect the dialogue and cooperation between China and the United States in important areas," said Zhao Lijian, China's foreign ministry spokesman.

"If the U.S. insists in wilfully clinging to its course, China will take resolute countermeasures," he said at a news conference.

U.S. President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering such a diplomatic boycott to protest China's human rights record, including what Washington says is genocide against minority Muslims. The administration has been under pressure from activists and members of Congress to skip the games.

The White House declined to comment on CNN's report on Sunday. Four sources with knowledge of the administration's thinking previously told Reuters that there was a growing consensus within the White House to keep U.S. officials away from the Beijing Olympics.

CNN said the U.S. boycott would not prevent its athletes from competing in the games.

The State Department did not respond to questions about the report late Sunday.