China backs Russia over Sochi hosting 2014 Winter Olympics
The president of China told his Russian counterpart on Wednesday that his country would continue to support the decision to hold 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia's resort city of Sochi.
Some western politicians, particularly U.S. lawmakers, proposed depriving Russia of the right to host the 2014 Olympics following its involvement in the conflicts between Georgia and its breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
"I want to reassure you that China will be firmly supporting Russia in hosti
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ng the 2014 Winter Olympic Games," Hu Jintao told Dmitry Medvedev. "We are ready to develop further cooperation with Russia on the organization of the Olympic Games."
The two presidents met as regional leaders gathered in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, for Thursday's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security bloc including four former Soviet Central Asian states.
China, which hosted this month Summer Olympics in Beijing, also met criticism from the west earlier in the year for its clampdown on protests in Tibet, with some European countries demanding the deprival of the rights for China to host the Olympics.
Sochi, on Russia's Black Sea coast, won the right to host the Olympics at an IOC session in Guatemala in July 2007 after a close race with South Korea's Pyeongchang and Austria's Salzburg.
It will be the first time the Winter Olympics has come to Russia. Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics in 1980, but the event was marred by a U.S.-led boycott involving more than 60 countries.
The president of China told his Russian counterpart on Wednesday that his country would continue to support the decision to hold 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia's resort city of Sochi.
