China warned on December 7 that the US would “pay the price” for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns.

The US move – which stopped short of preventing athletes from attending – comes after Washington spent months wrangling over what position to take on the Games, beginning in February next year, over what it has termed China’s “genocide” of the Uighur minority.

The move drew fiery opposition from Beijing, which threatened unspecified countermeasures, warning that the US would “pay the price for its wrongdoing”.

“The US attempt to interfere with the Beijing Winter Olympics out of ideological prejudice, based on lies and rumours, will only expose [its] sinister intentions,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

“The Winter Olympics are not a stage for political shows and political manipulation,” he added.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) called the US boycott a “purely political decision for each government, which the IOC in its political neutrality fully respects”.

The announcement “also makes it clear that the Olympic Games and the participation of the athletes are beyond politics and we welcome this”, an IOC spokesperson said.

Russia – whose predecessor state the USSR was subject to a full boycott of the Olympics by the US in 1980 following its invasion of Afghanistan – slammed the decision.

“Our position is that the Olympic Games should be free of politics,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, but said it was positive that participants were not impacted by the decision.