Over Half of US Adults Ready to Support Companies Pulling Out of Beijing Olympics, Poll Shows

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A recent Morning Consult poll showed that 58% of US adults will support companies that pull out of the Beijing Olympic Games because of the alleged human rights violations by China against ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs.

"In a … survey, 58 percent of US adults said they would support companies that pull out of the Games given the country’s human rights record, which includes imprisoning ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs," the poll published on Tuesday said.

According to the pollster, such actions will infuriate one of the world’s most lucrative markets, harming companies’ business prospects and tarnishing the companies’ partnership with the International Olympic Committee.

"Even without formally pulling their support of the Games, corporate sponsors would win over 55 percent of respondents by simply releasing a public statement recognizing China’s human rights violations," the pollster said, adding that 34% of adults said they would support sponsoring companies such as Coca-Cola, Intel, Visa, Nike, and others.

The poll has shown that 29% of Americans oppose companies sponsoring the Beijing Olympics. Opposition among older respondents is stronger than among younger generations, with 38% against 25%.

The poll was conducted from 29-31 January among 2,211 US adults, with an unweighted margin of error not exceeding 2 percentage points.

Xinjiang is China's largest region, where 25 million people of various ethnic backgrounds live, including 43% of Uyghurs, most of whom are Muslim. The region, bordering seven countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been considered an epicenter of terrorism and extremism for many years.

At the end of August 2018, experts from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported that up to 1 million ethnic Uyghurs could be in Beijing-run "re-education camps" in Xinjiang.

Beijing has consistently denied the existence of "re-education camps," insisting that the country is fully complying with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.