Beijing, Jan 28 : Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 has put the 13 official corporate partners of the Games in a dilemma, despite the event being a huge marketing opportunity for sponsors, BBC reported on Friday. All these sponsors find themselves caught in the diplomatic spat between the US and China Countries like the US, UK, Australia and Canada have announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games for China’s alleged human rights violations of its minority Uyghur population, and its actions in Tibet and Hong Kong.
Although the athletes from these countries will still be participating in the Games. BBC reports a dramatic fall in the number of tweets referring to the Games from the Olympics’ global sponsors – as compared to last year’s Summer Games in Tokyo or as it was seen in the build up to the games.
The former chief marketing officer for the US Olympic Committee at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Rick Burton, saying that these sponsors were “walking a tightrope” with none of them daring to directly criticise the Chinese government. On the other hand if the sponsors are overly supportive of the Games, without ever mentioning the accusations of human rights abuses in China, they will inevitably face criticism from the West
