Apparently, despite the intensive spread of COVID-19, several countries, especially the United States and European Union (EU), stress the importance of human rights. Actually, the issue regarding the violation of human rights has raised serious debates and discordance of opinions between the West and China. For that reason, few countries in Europe, Canada, the U.S., and Australia passed a non-binding resolution to declare the treatment of the Uyghur minority by the Chinese government as a genocide. Consequently, the 2022 Winter Olympics has become part of political debate. Currently, due to the mistreatment of Uyghurs minorities, countries are debating whether to nullify the 2022 Winter Olympics that is supposed to be held in Beijing, China.
According to several news reports, Uyghurs are Muslim population living in Xinjiang, especially in the north-western region. Rights groups and countries, such as the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, believe that the Chinese government detained approximately one million Uyghurs over the past few years. Unfortunately, if the allegation is true, it could negatively affect the next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. Erin O’Toole, a conservative leader, called on Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, to add pressure to the International Olympic Committee to move the games from Beijing. According to the article, “Sending athletics to a country that is committing genocide would violate universal fundamental ethical principles1. Human rights around the world have also called for a boycott2. It’s only if [relocation] is not possible and there’s no change of conduct by the state of China that we should examine whether our athletes compete3. Participate in an Olympic Games hosted by a country [China] that is committing a genocide against of its population…. Canada must make a stand4.”
The above argument was given by Erin O’Toole, urging Canada and the Olympics Committee to reconsider relocating the games from Beijing. The argument is a fallacy since it attacks rather than addresses the facts. Also, it appeals to people to boycott the games to inflict pain on the Chinese government and force the government to abolish its human rights abuse, specifically regarding the mistreatment of Uyghurs minority group, is for countries, including the United States, Australia, France, among others, to boycott, or, if not by boycotting, relocate the games to some other country. Moreover, the argument is a fallacy because it also gives a mutually exclusive option and is oversimplified and distorted. Conversely, the Canadian Olympics Committee refused O’Toole’s request as they believed that boycotting is not the perfect solution to the problem, thereby presenting an argument that is a fallacy. According to the Olympics Committee says, “Boycott is not the answer, the interest of all Canadian, and global community, are advanced through competing and celebrating great Canadian performance and values on the Olympics and Paralympic stage5” (Jones, 2021).
Certainly, when analyzing O’Toole’s argument as to why the 2022 Olympics Winter games should be relocated to another country, primarily to force the Chinese government to adhere to human rights, one could see the argument contains several informal fallacies. Yes, the subject is worthy of exploration; nonetheless, the argument should not have included these informal fallacies, attributing them to the opponent (China). The argument was irrelevantly attacking the government of China. Agreeably, any issue involving the violation of human rights must be taken seriously. However, the argument should have used less fallacious, specific attacks and more factual and less general attacks.
In the first part, the argument should have been “Sending athletics to any country that is alleged or suspected of committing genocide would violate the very fundamental ethical principles that we as humans believe. Unfortunately, China is suspected of violating the very moral principles we all believe in.
Unsurprisingly, to win people’s favor, one has to win the audience and to do so, one has to heavily engage emotions to the audience, or majority of people, but how? Suggestively, one has to make the audience believe something is right regardless of the facts, and by doing so, turning away the argument to emotion rather than reason. The second part of the argument indeed tried to employ emotions to the audience. Ideally, the argument should have tried to use reasons rather than feelings. The argument should have said, “Due to lack of enough evidence from the Chinese government to refute the allegations of human rights violations, human rights activists around the world should boycott until the government produces the evidence needed.” In doing so, perhaps the arguments should have been based more on reason and way from emotional appeals, which explores people’s irrationality.
Honestly, I am not pro-China, especially regarding human rights violations, though nothing can be certain without hard pieces of evidence. That is why the argument needs hard evidence rather than a logical fallacy that only gives either ‘black’ or ‘white’ options. The argument gave the audience, particularly listeners, two choices: either participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics in China and support a country that violates human rights or boycott the Olympics and force the government to adhere to human rights law. Ideally, stating that “there’s no change of conduct by the state of China,” the argument meant that even in the participation of the 2022 Winter Olympics, China would change its alleged activities. Encouragingly, the third part of the argument should have said, “Actually, I don’t want our athletics to send to a country alleged to have human rights issues.”
Furthermore, in the argument, O’Toole’s argument distorted the very critical information regarding the state of China. Subsequently, it distorted the previous claims that the Chinese government has provided about the Uyghurs minority. According to multiple sources, the Chinese government believes that some Uyghur individuals are associated with terrorism. Thus, by stating that a country committing genocide to its population would host the Olympics, the argument was unquestionably distorting the previous information that the Chinese government released. Supposedly, the last part of the argument should have said, “As a nation, Canada, the U.S., and the rest of the countries should reconsider the idea of sending their athletes to countries recently alleged to misuse human rights. Canada and other countries must make a stand on issues that involves human rights.”
Lastly, this argument is not based on O’Toole’s argument, but the Olympics Committee’s. In response to O’Toole’s claim on Olympics relocation, the Olympics Committee wrongly shifted the claim to counter O’Toole’s argument. Based on their argument, it is seemingly possible that the Committee believed their conclusion to be true because no enough evidence supports Uyghur’s genocide. Perhaps, for this reason, the Olympics Committee believes there is no need for relocation. The Committee should have concluded, “The value performance and value on the Olympics and Paralympic stage in China would solely depend on the evidence of such allegation.” The conclusion would confirm the role of evidence in decision-making to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
Reference
Jones, R. P. (2021). O’Toole calls for relocation of 2022 Olympic Games out of China. CBC.
Footnotes
- Ad Hominem Fallacy.
- Indirect Appeal to the People.
- False Dichotomy.
- Straw Man.
- Appeal to Ignorance.