The Winter Olympics are getting under way in Beijing, but American athletes are facing a hard choice.

If they say nothing about China’s well-documented human rights abuses, they could be seen as acquiescent. If they speak out while they are in China, they could face punitive measures.

Back in Washington, lawmakers are frustrated that sports stars have been thrown into such a difficult dilemma.

“I think the International Olympic Committee owes an abject apology to every single athlete for having sold out to Beijing and agreed to hold these games in China,” Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) told this column. “It has put our athletes in a terrible position.”

Malinowski has been at the forefront of Capitol Hill efforts to make sure the Games do not turn into a propaganda coup for Beijing. He is also insistent that President Biden and his administration do everything possible to ensure American athletes are protected. The U.S. is mounting a diplomatic boycott, meaning the administration is sending no officials to the Games even though American athletes are competing.

Last week, Malinowski and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) were the lead names on a bipartisan letter that insisted the administration should ensure every American athlete and supporting official “received guidance on the risks posed by attending the games.” 

The letter also asked about measures to safeguard Americans’ data while they were in China and said the administration should make sure there were “contingency plans” in place “to address possible politically motivated punitive measures taken against athletes while competing in the games.”

More than 20 other members of Congress signed that letter. 

On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that while the U.S. government had “an urgent moral duty to shine a bright light” onto China’s abuses, individual athletes should be wary of “incurring the anger” of a government that she described as “ruthless.”

The worries about the safely of athletes are not hyperbolic. Last month, a member of China’s organizing committee for the Games said at a news conference that “any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.”

The concerns are especially sharp because of the increased politicization of American sports. 

Sport has always featured occasional political statements — the Black power salutes of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos from the podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics come to mind. But the idea that athletes have a moral duty to speak out has become more prevalent in the "take a knee," Black Lives Matter era.

Meanwhile, the Winter Games are being held in a nation that is estimated to have held 1 million or more Uyghurs and other minorities in detention. Beijing has also cracked down on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong and generally has little tolerance for expressions of dissent.

The shadowy case of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis player who disappeared from public view after accusing a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party of pressuring her into sex, adds fuel to the fires of anxiety. Peng has reappeared and has said she never accused anyone of having sexually assaulted her. But there are lingering concerns as to whether she is under duress.

Many American experts say that China’s ruling party has become significantly more oppressive since the 2008 Summer Olympics, also in Beijing, which were seen at the time as a coming-out party for the nation.

“In 2008, they promised to have open areas where people could speak freely to limit censorship. In 2022, there is no such promise — in fact, quite the contrary,” said Scott Harold, a China expert and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

“Athletes who come to China could be prosecuted under Chinese law. It would absolutely be the case that any athlete brave enough to risk her or his own safety to speak out should certainly earn our respect. But I would not go around blithely suggesting it. Their voices can be much louder outside of China.”

Many observers believe that the Chinese authorities would be reluctant to detain any athletes who did speak out, since it would “drive more attention to the criticisms,” as another expert, Sheena Greitens, put it.

Greitens, an associate professor at the University of Texas, added that she would nonetheless advise any government, including Biden’s, “to think through in advance how they would handle that kind of situation.”

It isn’t just the worry about athletes being detained that hangs over the Games. 

The FBI this week urged athletes to use temporary “burner” phones while in China for fear of their data being hacked by the authorities.

Then there is the broader fear of the Games being used as a platform to advertise the supposed merits of China’s authoritarian mode of government. Biden himself has spoken about the clash between democracies and authoritarian regimes as the defining one of our times.

"The Chinese are hoping these Games will go as smoothly as possible, even though they are not the coming-out-to-the-world party that the 2008 Games were supposed to be,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at American University. “If Beijing is still able to host a successful Olympics, they hope it will help feed into a narrative that China’s system is powerfully able to handle such events" despite challenges like COVID-19.

With all these issues swirling, there will also be more acute scrutiny of American media coverage of the Games — especially from NBC. Eight years ago, NBC paid almost $8 billion for the rights to televise every Olympic Games until 2032. 

The broadcasting organization is in a tough spot, caught between the business imperative to sell its lavishly expensive product and the journalistic imperative to highlight the broader political story.

In a recent letter, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) called on NBC to address “the impact of China’s human rights abuses.”

Malinowski, who joined a separate but similar letter from lawmakers, told this column that the broadcasting giant “should cover the Games as any objective news agency would — accurately, rather than simply serving as a conveyor belt.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.