The Australian’s Washington DC correspondent Adam Creighton says it is “no surprise” the Commonwealth government will diplomatically boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

“I think it’s fair to say it’s probably no surprise that Australia has followed suit with the US given the closeness of the relationship between the two countries and, in particular, the AUKUS alliance this year and the similarity of their stances toward China,” he told Sky News Australia.

Mr Creighton says it remains to be seen how European counterparts will react to the latest developments.

“The real interesting question I think is whether the European nations are going to follow suit and so far they haven’t,” he added.

“You might end up with a situation where it’s only Australia and the US that are doing this and as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said in Canada just a few weeks ago when he was visiting, that’s not a very effective boycott in that case.

“The French government said today there would be some sort of coordination at the European Union level but there’s been no decision yet by those governments.”

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