President Joe Biden has made the necessary moral decision for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained on Monday that the Biden administration "will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given [China's] ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses." Psaki also rightly noted that China "has zero tolerance for criticism and a record of silencing those that speak out."

This proportionate step lends the Biden administration credit. It allows U.S. athletes the opportunity to show that they are the world's finest. A full boycott of the Olympics would have denied them that chance after years of relentless training. But the diplomat-focused boycott will also put pressure on the European Union to take similar action. The EU parliament remains in favor of a boycott, but Beijing-sympathetic EU executive officials are more hesitant. They must now decide whether their much-proclaimed human rights values are worth anything.

Regardless, the moral necessity for this action is abundantly clear. The Chinese Communist Party has imprisoned, raped, tortured, and "reeducated" perhaps two million of its Uyghur citizens in an effort to erase their culture. It has then redeployed these innocent people hundreds of miles from their families for use as servile labor. Xi Jinping's regime has also shredded its international treaty commitment to preserve democratic rights in Hong Kong. And it has no qualms about disappearing those who dare to tease Xi or his sacred party. Relevant to the Olympics, we've also seen that even Chinese sports stars are denied basic rights. Tennis player Peng Shuai remains disappeared, punished for accusing a senior party official of sexual abuse.

The Chinese foreign ministry's resident "wolf warrior," Zhao Lijian, wails that this "is a grave travesty of the spirit of the Olympic Charter, a blatant political provocation, and a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people." He says China will offer "resolute countermeasures."

Fine. But at least the world now knows where the U.S. government stands. It is not with Beijing's American puppets — companies such as Coca-Cola and Mars and rich celebrities such as LeBron James and Ray Dalio. It is with those who suffer before an evil regime.