@Danoff What is your opinion on sportwashing in general?
First time I've heard the term.
It doesn't seem like sports are really all that special here. Basically, it's a complaint that a nation that is doing bad things looks good in some way. That can be true in scientific achievement, engineering achievement (so like, space missions, or fancy bridges or sculptures), financial achievement. Fireworks, handouts, achievement medals, photo ops, summits, nation building, even some kinds of philanthropy - all of it can be used to cover up some nefarious deeds or divert attention from some historical problem. This is true for companies as well as nations, or even individuals (Michael Jackson).
Would we rather it didn't happen? Do we prefer that nations that do bad things don't do anything good? It's not really in our hands anyway.
Ok, so shoe on the other foot time. Is the US trying to cover up for its police brutality scandals by announcing a black woman for the supreme court? Would we prefer that Biden nominated a white guy so that it doesn't look like he's covering for the George Floyd debacle? I know that the US situation has better intentions and a less severe problem than China. In my US example, it's a better deed, and a less terrible crime than the Chinese example.
During the cold war, the US and Russia competed in the Olympics. This wasn't a situation where we just didn't like something Russia was doing, we had enough nuclear weapons pointed to each other to noticeably alter Earth's orbit (or so I've been told) - end not just each other, but everyone else too. It's one of the great things about the Olympics, and global interactions in general - it brings all of these issues to the surface, and brings nations that would like to isolate from each other face to face to see that we're all human, and make us interact in a civil way. It's a peacemaking effort. I don't view Olympic participation as a distraction, but as an opportunity to de-escalate - to have a shared dialog.
It's perfect that the US took the opportunity to say something about the Uyghurs during the Olympics. But given what has been done to them, and that China is hosting, I think Uyghur (and Hong Kong for that matter) participation in the Olympics is overall better than not. It's not purely helpful, there are downsides to the extent that people can be mislead, but I think I'd prefer that to simply making sure they disappear.