Japan Won't Send Officials to 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Japan is not going to send a government delegation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the top government spokesman announced on Friday.

This decision comes in line with a U.S.-led diplomatic boycott of the sporting spectacle over China's human rights record. However, Japanese athletes will attend the February games as scheduled, according to government sources.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno noted that Japan will send Seiko Hashimoto, a House of Councillors lawmaker and president of the organizing committee of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics held this summer, in addition to two others.

The sources revealed that the government gave up on a plan to send senior officials to the Beijing Games due to the little improvement in the human rights situations in the far-western Xinjiang region and Hong Kong.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attaches importance to human rights as a major pillar of Japan's diplomacy.

"We think it is important that universal values such as freedom, respect of basic human rights and rule of law are ensured in China," Matsuno said. "We have made the decision by comprehensively taking into account such factors."

However, Matsuno did not confirm that the decision represents a diplomatic boycott, telling a press conference that the government "does not have a special term" to describe the move.

The announcement was made by Matsuno rather than Kishida as the country is trying not to directly provoke the Chinese leadership, especially as Japan and China are set to mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations in 2022, according to the sources.