Olympic torch is brought into the stadium by Chinese athletes Dinigeer Yilamujian and Zhao Jiawen during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing.

Responding to certain US politicians' remarks on China's decision to choose an ethnic Uygur torchbearer to light the Olympic cauldron, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday that it is a "lie of the century" and has fully exposed the ill intentions of the US to politicize the sports event and use Xinjiang-related issues to smear China. 

Such intentions will end in failure, Zhao said at Wednesday's media briefing. He added that the selection and arrangements for the torchbearers are not for the US to judge.

Under the gaze of the world, two young Chinese athletes placed a torch in the center of a giant snowflake during the grand opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. One of the two athletes, Dinigeer Yilamujiang, is a 22-year-old of Uygur ethnicity hailing from Altay of China's Xinjiang region.

Commenting on China's selection of the Uygur torchbearer, the US White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that "We can't allow this to be a distraction ... from the human rights abuses, the genocide that we're seeing in parts of China," she said as reported by Reuters. 

"What counts as genocide? It is what the Americans did to the Indians," Zhao said. There was the genocide of the Indians in the US, and there is now the systemic discrimination against ethnic minorities in its society. The Indian population plummeted from 5 million in the late 15th century to 250,000 in the early 20th century, a sharp drop to only 5 percent, Zhao said. 

"What the US should do is to seriously reckon with its own historical crime of genocide and take practical measures to reduce racial discrimination against Indians, Africans, Asians and other minorities," Zhao noted. 

On Monday, Zhao said choosing a Uygur athlete to be a torchbearer at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony shows China's policy of promoting winter sports and improving people's health is benefiting people of all ethnic groups. 

According to the Olympic Charter, Dinigeer Yilamujiang, the Uygur athlete, has the right to participate in the Games and ceremonies as a member of Team China, and there are clear criteria for selecting torchbearers for the Beijing Winter Games, which take into account comprehensive considerations of personal will, competition results, age, popularity, ethnic composition and other factors, so as to fully reflect broad representation.

Global Times