China's Big Balls

China’s response to NBA Hong Kong tweet was a ‘violation of US sovereignty,’ Condoleezza Rice says
Rice’s comments refer to Beijing’s attack on Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, who in early October tweeted an image that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand for Hong Kong.”

By Natasha Turak

A Tiananmen Square-type crackdown on Hong Kong would be ‘huge mistake’: Rice

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — China’s heavy-handed response to an NBA general manager’s comments on the turbulent protests in Hong Kong represents a violation of U.S. sovereignty, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a panel event in the United Arab Emirates capital on Monday.
“When China says to the NBA, the National Basketball Association, ‘your general manager cannot say something about what’s going on in Hong Kong,’ now that’s a violation of American sovereignty, because Americans have the right to say what they please,” Rice told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the annual Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference (Adipec).
“And so I think this has become something of a problem between the two countries, it’s not going to go away, it’s certainly not going to go away in Congress, where I think people are holding back on sanctions but worried that they may have to put them forward.”
Rice’s comments refer to Beijing’s harsh response to Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who in early October tweeted an image that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand for Hong Kong.”

Chinese companies promptly suspended ties with the Rockets, and the Chinese Basketball Association terminated its cooperation with the team.

Men walk past a poster at an NBA exhibition in Beijing, China October 8, 2019.

In response to China’s anger, Morey and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued apologetic statements and distanced themselves from the Hong Kong comments, drawing a flood of criticism from members of Congress who accused them of putting profits over democratic values. 

With a population of roughly 1.4 billion people, China is the NBA’s most important international market.
Silver later said that Beijing demanded that he fire Morey.
Tensions continue to grip the world’s two largest economies, as stark differences in ideology and political values exacerbate animosity already triggered by a now 16-month-long trade war. Meanwhile, anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong this week took their darkest turn since they began five months ago, with a protester shot by police and reports of a man set on fire.

In the last week, authorities have arrested a total of 266 people between the ages of 11 and 74, the Hong Kong police said Monday. 

Several pro-democracy lawmakers have been arrested and blocked roads are rampant around the city. 

More than 2,000 people have been arrested since October.
“There is great concern in the United States about what is going on in Hong Kong,” Rice said. 

“There is great concern first of all as to whether or not the promise from Beijing of one country and two systems is really being honored. And this is a conversation that I think governments need to have with the Chinese.”Still, she said, “We can’t tell the people of Hong Kong we’re somehow going intervene in Hong Kong. But we can continue to speak for the rights of those people to protest for their rights.”

Protesters set a shop of Chinese mobile brand Xiaomi on fire during a demonstration.

Protests in Hong Kong began in response to a proposed law that would have made it possible for Hong Kongers to be extradited to China to stand trial. 

That bill has been withdrawn, but the protests have continued. 

Hong Kong currently operates under the “one country, two systems” principle where Beijing gives Hong Kong’s citizens some legal and economic freedoms that it denies people on mainland China.
Among the protesters’ demands are a more representative democracy to choose the city leader, who is currently elected by a small, mostly pro-Beijing group of elites.
The fallout from the NBA controversy comes as both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are increasingly vocal in criticizing China’s trade practices and human rights record. 

It has only deepened distrust between the U.S. and China as the countries’ trade negotiators push ahead with high-stakes talks.
The worst thing China could do, Rice said, is to impose a brutal crackdown like that of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, when Chinese authorities killed an estimated several thousand pro-democracy protesters in an event whose history is now heavily censored and denied within the country.
“There is also concern as the reaction to the protests becomes more violent, as we’ve seen in the last day, and whether or not the Chinese government in Beijing is going to recognize this is not a flame they can just extinguish,” Rice added. 

“There is going to have to be a reckoning with the people of Hong Kong to help them to see that China intends to respect their system and their rights. I hope it’s not too late.”

Chinese Peril

China Is an Underrated Threat to the World

By John Mauldin

Chinese occupying forces in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, somewhere between 1–2 million people (out of a 7+ million population) have taken to the streets protesting an extradition bill proposed by Beijing.
These protests have been ongoing and persistent. 

That the extradition bill has now been withdrawn is seemingly not enough to satisfy Hongkongers.
And then came the furor over the NBA. 

The general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted out a small and rather innocuous message of support for the Hong Kong protesters.
(Note that Twitter is not allowed inside of China. This should have been a non-event. Almost any NBA referee would have overseen it as no harm, no foul.)
But it set off a furor within China. 

Contracts were cancelled, and the government demanded Morey be fired.

Think About That for a Second
Some low-level bureaucrat pressured businesses to cancel contracts and then demanded an American organization tell one of its members to fire one of its employees who had exercised what we think of as free speech over here.
Note that NBA basketball is one of China’s most popular sports. 

China is a growing market and moneymaker for the NBA. 

To his credit, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver defended the right of free speech and said there was “no chance” the league would discipline Morey over that tweet.
This was business as usual from the Chinese perspective. 

It is something every American company that does business in China has to deal with.
You don’t criticize the Chinese government. 

You block access to information the government wants hidden. 

You use maps that are Chinese-government approved. 

The list goes on and on.
The key “tell” is that the Chinese actually expected a reaction and felt they had the right to dictate to US companies and organizations, which because of prior acquiescence on the part of companies and organizations, led them to believe they would be successful.
Most of their “arm-twisting” is done behind closed doors and out of the view of the public. 

This was not…

This Is the Underlying Problem with China
The United States and the rest of the West are not dealing with 1.3 billion Chinese citizens and human beings. 

The country is run by the Chinese Communist Party, which controls almost every facet of life for everyone there.
Over the last three or four years, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with China’s ambitions.
There has been a surge of research pointing to the fact that the Chinese military has openly planned to be the dominant world power by 2049. 

And while many of these documents have been withdrawn, there is no doubt that they were written.
I have talked to people who have been in the libraries and read them in China. 

This desire for dominance has always been a latent force but one that was convenient to ignore, except that now we can no longer ignore it.
There’s a growing consensus that behind the Chinese economic colossus is a threat to not just the United States and other Western democracies, but the very concepts of free speech and personal liberty, not to mention property rights and the rule of law that we consider the foundations of civilization.
If something so utterly meaningless as a tweet about Hong Kong rises to the level that it requires “thought control” then what is next?

N.B.A. Commissioner Commits to Free Speech

China’s state-run television canceled broadcasts of two preseason games scheduled to be held in the country this week, and Adam Silver issued an emphatic defense of the right of league employees to speak out on political issues.

By Sopan Deb

Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.

The N.B.A.’s decades-long push to develop China into its biggest overseas market appeared in jeopardy on Tuesday as the league’s commissioner stood firm in the face of criticism from Beijing and the Chinese threatened financial repercussions.
The threats began when China’s state-run television announced it would not broadcast two N.B.A. preseason games this week in Shanghai and Shenzhen that would feature basketball’s biggest star, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Hours later, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, issued an emphatic defense of its employees’ right to speak out on political issues.
That followed days of intense criticism accusing Silver of trying to appease one of the world’s most autocratic governments after a Houston Rockets executive tweeted support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. 

“We will protect our employees’ freedom of speech,” Silver said.
The N.B.A. has made global expansion — particularly into China — a core part of its mission. 

The preseason games are part of a set of events designed to promote the league in the country — including basketball clinics, fan gatherings and various public appearances by players.
But the league’s Chinese campaign has been overshadowed by the single pro-Hong Kong tweet on Friday night from Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets, who shared an image that contained the words “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” 

The phrase is a popular slogan at the protests in Hong Kong that have raged for months.

The tweet put the league in a situation familiar to many global companies seeking to do business in a Communist country with 1.4 billion people: Any misstep could mean swiftly losing access to a powerful economy.
China Central Television, the state broadcaster, made clear the risks of challenging Beijing, chiding the league for an earlier expression of support for Morey’s free speech rights.

At a news conference in Japan — where the Rockets played the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday — Silver said that the Chinese broadcast cancellation was unexpected and that a community outreach event scheduled to take place at a school in Shanghai had also been canceled.
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Silver said. 

“But if that’s the consequences of us adhering to our values, we still feel it’s critically important we adhere to those values.”

Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, left, as the team announced the signing of the star guard Russell Westbrook in July.

Silver planned to travel to Shanghai on Wednesday and said he hoped to meet with Chinese government officials to try to defuse the conflict.

“But I’m a realist as well, and I recognize that this issue may not die down so quickly,” Silver said.

Both Democrats and Republicans have castigated the league for its initial reaction to the situation: a statement on Sunday that said it was “regrettable” that Morey’s tweet had offended people in China. The N.B.A. also said that “the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them.”
Silver responded again on Tuesday morning with a statement that said: “It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the N.B.A. to adjudicate those differences.”
The statement continued: “However, the N.B.A. will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way.”
Chinese government and basketball officials, as well as Chinese companies, had pressured the N.B.A. to be more critical of Morey, and to go beyond a version of the league’s statement that appeared on Chinese social media platforms on Sunday. 

In that statement, the league appeared to call Morey’s tweet “inappropriate.” (The league denied that the difference in translation was intentional and said the English version should be considered its official response.)

An N.B.A. store in Beijing.

Despite the controversy, as of Tuesday, the preseason games had not been canceled, even though they would not be broadcast in China. 

The Lakers were scheduled to play the Brooklyn Nets, a team owned by Joe Tsai, the billionaire co-founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. 

In a lengthy Facebook post this week, Tsai criticized Morey’s tweet as damaging to the N.B.A. in China. 

Also, an editorial in the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, carried the headline: “Sports loses out when politics enters play.”


Sopan Deb
✔@SopanDeb
UPDATE: Per NBA spokesman, Mike Bass: "There should be no discrepancy on the statement issued earlier today. We have seen various interpretations of the translation of the Mandarin version, but our statement in English is the league’s official statement.”
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7:10 AM - Oct 7, 2019

Multiple Chinese companies, including Luckin Coffee and Anta, a sportswear brand that sponsors N.B.A. players, announced Tuesday that they were suspending partnerships with the league.

Criticism of the N.B.A. also has come from pro-Hong Kong activists and their supporters in the United States, who have accused Silver of capitulating to an authoritarian government.
Silver, in an interview with CNN after his news conference on Tuesday, hinted at frustration over the way the league’s actions have been received.
“I will say I’m a bit surprised that CCTV canceled the telecasting of preseason games, and specifically named me as the cause,” Silver said. 

“It’s interesting, while at the same time in the U.S. media, there is some suggesting I am not being protective enough of our employees. Clearly, they’re seeing it the other way in China, but I think, at the end of the day, we have been pretty consistent.”
The backlash hasn’t been limited to Silver and Morey. 

The Rockets superstar James Harden was criticized on social media for offering an apology to China while standing next to his teammate Russell Westbrook.
Other basketball figures have steered clear of the topic. 

Steve Kerr, the typically outspoken coach of the Golden State Warriors, declined to comment on Monday, telling reporters, “It’s a really bizarre international story, and a lot of us really don’t know what to make of it.”
One notable exception was another outspoken coach, Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs. 

He praised Silver’s remarks, saying: “He came out strongly for freedom of speech today. I felt great again. He’s been a heck of a leader in that respect and very courageous. Then you compare it to what we’ve had to live through the past three years, it’s a big difference. A big gap there, leadership-wise and courage-wise.”
DeAndre Jordan of the Nets told ESPN that it was unfortunate for events to be canceled, but that the players aren’t experts on Hong Kong.
“What we are experts in is basketball, and we wanted to come here to promote basketball and see all of our fans in China,” Jordan said.

America's Moral Pygmies

The NBA Chooses China’s Money Over Hong Kong’s Human Rights
Daryl Morey is forced to apologize because he supports Democracy
By JAMIL SMITH

Pro-democracy protesters arrested by police during a clash at a demonstration in Wan Chai district on October 6, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.

Daryl Morey did the right thing — at first.
In a Friday night tweet that he has since deleted, the Houston Rockets general manager expressed support for the legions of protesters who have taken to the streets of Hong Kong.
The demonstrations started as a protest against a new Chinese extradition bill that opponents believe would lead to the disappearance of Hong Kong’s critics of the Chinese regime, as well as infringe upon the limited independence the semi-autonomous region enjoys.

The bill was pulled in September, but the protesters have additional demands, including an independent inquiry on police brutality and the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam.
These are understandable fears when dealing with a Communist regime like China’s. 

And the NBA has long been known as perhaps the most free-thinking, outspoken league when it comes to the politics of its players. (Just last week, the governor of California signed a controversial bill into law on a television show hosted by LeBron James, arguably the league’s most visible player.)
However, the problem for Morey is that the Chinese also love basketball. 

And thanks surely to the stardom of former Rockets Yao Ming — now the head of the Chinese Basketball Association — Houston trailed only Golden State in popularity in the nation, per a recent survey. 

There appears to be too much money to be made in China for the NBA to stand up for human rights.
Yao himself responded to Morey’s tweet with condemnation, calling it “an inappropriate comment related to Hong Kong” and the CBA suspended its “exchanges and cooperation” with the Rockets. Chinese sportswear maker Li-Ning did the same, suspending its association with the team. 

The Chinese government also weighed in via its consulate, saying that it was “deeply shocked” by the tweet. 

The Rockets owner, Tilman Fertitta, quickly disowned Morey’s tweet:


Tilman Fertitta
✔@TilmanJFertitta
Listen....@dmorey does NOT speak for the @HoustonRockets. Our presence in Tokyo is all about the promotion of the @NBA internationally and we are NOT a political organization. @espn https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1180312072027947008 …
938
5:54 AM - Oct 5, 2019

The Rockets and the NBA could have stood up for Morey, for decency, and for the protesters and their human rights. 

More than 2,000 have been injured in months of demonstrations that the Chinese government characterizes as “riots.” 

But they instead folded all too readily, all too eager to hold onto the dollars that they glean from the Communist nation.
The NBA issued a sorry statement, declaring the league realizes that the tweet may have “deeply offended” Chinese fans and that they “have great respect for the history and culture of China,” as if that had anything to do with a bill that could be used to disappear journalists and critics of an autocratic regime. 

Morey, who The Ringer reports was at one point in jeopardy of losing his job, tweeted his own apology that read like it was dictated by his boss. 

Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai, a co-founder of Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, published an open letter on Facebook that referred to protesters as a “separatist movement.” 

Even James Harden, the Rockets’ star guard, issued a mea culpa for some reason, even though he wasn’t involved.
That last bit of rank submission to an autocratic regime captured the full extent of the NBA’s sellout to China. 

Several politicians on the left and right, including presidential candidate Julián Castro and Rep. Ben Sasse (R-MO), called out the NBA’s cowardice. 

Even Rockets fan Ted Cruz took a principled stand:


Ted Cruz
✔@tedcruz
· Oct 7, 2019
As a lifelong @HoustonRockets fan, I was proud to see @dmorey call out the Chinese Communist Party’s repressive treatment of protestors in Hong Kong.
Now, in pursuit of big $$, the @nba is shamefully retreating. https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1181006820372025344 …
Sopan Deb
✔@SopanDeb
NEW: the NBA has released a statement on Daryl Morey:



Ted Cruz
✔@tedcruz
We’re better than this; human rights shouldn’t be for sale & the NBA shouldn’t be assisting Chinese communist censorship.
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For all its MLK Day t-shirts and other symbolic gestures towards wokeness here in the States, this is still the league that sees fit to do business with a regime that represses human rights whenever given the chance.

The league even has a presence in East Turkestan, in the northwest of the country. 

It is the Chinese colony where Slate reported last year the nation’s authorities were holding roughly one million Muslims, the Turkic-speaking minority called Uighurs, in concentration camps. 

The NBA has a different kind of camp there — one of its three national training camps — in Ürümqi, East Turkestan’s capital.

Greedy America's Money Cult: The Long List of Beijing Ass-Kissers

Don’t be mad at the NBA. Hundreds of U.S. companies have sold out to Chinese tyrants.

By Sally Jenkins

Get off the NBA’s back, all you people who want sports to be the children’s literature of your lost youth.

Somehow, because the Houston Rockets capitulated to their Chinese business partners, the league is now supposed to be a gutless violator of human rights?

You better start with General Electric.
Or KFC. 

Or how about Walmart?
It’s more than a little ludicrous for everyone from Ted Cruz to Beto O’Rourke to suddenly hand the NBA and the Rockets the tab for American toadying to authoritarians in Beijing. 

If they want to draw that line in the sand, they can draw it with any of their favorite dozen American corporations — only that wouldn’t be so politically convenient, would it?
It’s easier to hurl righteous outrage and umbrage at a large target such as Rockets star James Harden, who on Monday apologized to China for "hurt feelings" at the behest of his bosses. 

“We love China,” he said. 

It’s far more pat and satisfying to go all-in at Rockets management for making General Manager Daryl Morey apologize for his tweet over the weekend in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. 

“I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China,” he said in a statement.
And, boy, isn’t it an easy viral sound clip to accuse the entire NBA of “blatant prioritization of profits over human rights,” as O’Rourke did, and call it an embarrassment, simply because the league called the incident “regrettable” and tried to patch things up with Chinese dictators?
You want to be angry at the NBA for cowering in the face of China’s authoritarian regime? 

You want to accuse NBA Commissioner Adam Silver of supporting a murderous dictatorship simply to further business interests in China? 

Fine. 

Good for you.
But understand the NBA is only imitating that smooth move patented by dozens of other fine, flag-waving American corporations in their dealings with China. 

A half-dozen American corporate sponsors set the template a decade ago at the Beijing Olympics, when they colluded in the silencing of U.S. athletes and were far more directly complicit in a host of human rights violations.
Remember what champs Visa and General Electric were when the Chinese refused to grant entry to American athlete Joey Cheek because he had been too audible of an activist against abuses in Darfur? 

And how about the courageous support Coca-Cola gave to Chinese dissidents when Beijing authorities cracked down on them in advance of those Games?
Never forget the standup position Johnson & Johnson took when Steven Spielberg quit as artistic director of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies because Beijing not only failed to honor a single one of the reform promises it had made in procuring the right to host the Games but actually went on a terroristic bender against its own citizens, destroying whole neighborhoods, enlisting slave labor and throwing anyone who didn’t like it into a camp.
Ford. 

GM. 

Starbucks. 

Papa John’s. 

All of them do massive business with China. 

Abercrombie & Fitch. 

Boeing. 

Procter & Gamble. 

Start with them. 

All of them have long known what the conditions and equations are for doing business in the China market.
Australian journalist Geremie Barmé, who has covered China for many years, sums it up in a phrase: “contentious friendship.”
“To be a "friend" of China, the foreigner is often expected to stomach unpalatable situations, and keep silent in the face of egregious behavior,” he has written. 

“A "friend" of China might enjoy the privilege of offering the occasional word of caution in private; in the public arena he or she is expected to have the good sense and courtesy to be ‘objective.’ That is to toe the line, whatever that happens to be. The concept of ‘friendship’ thus degenerates into little more than an effective tool for emotional blackmail and enforced complicity.”
Throughout the Beijing Olympics, American companies remained silent. 

So did IOC President Jacques Rogge. 

When Rogge finally did open his mouth to protest someone’s conduct, it wasn’t anyone in China’s leaderships. 

The man he decided to pick was Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, for his bad manners in celebrating too boldly. 

The outrage at the NBA is more than a little remindful of that.
Yes, the NBA has made a mutually beneficial commercial accommodation with China. 

There are 800 million Chinese viewers of the league, according to Time, and there is a 30-year media partnership. 

You have a problem with that or consider it gutless? 

Then you have a problem with literally hundreds of American companies.

Stand for freedom, boycott the NBA

By Philip Klein

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supported the Hong Kong protesters.

If you're a freedom-loving American, you should boycott the NBA.
There's simply no reason to support the NBA after its pathetic decision to side with China's oppressive totalitarian regime over pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
For those who missed it, this all started when Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, exercised his free speech rights when he sent out a tweet supporting the Hong Kong protesters.
China reacted as oppressive regimes do, and the Chinese Basketball Association responded by cutting ties to the Rockets, one of the most popular teams in the Communist country because Chinese superstar Yao Ming played for the team.
The response was infuriating.
The owner of the Rockets, Tilman Fertitta, distanced himself from the remarks, assuring China that Morey "does not speak for the Houston Rockets."
The NBA released a statement in English recognizing Morey's statement has "deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable." 

What's worse, the league released a Chinese language statement saying the NBA was “extremely disappointed in the inappropriate comment.”
Morey, meanwhile, had to be humiliated in a series of apologetic tweets equivalent to a Maoist struggle session, in which he said he did not mean to offend, and that he "was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives."
The incredible part of all of this is that it isn't as if Morey went on an extended rant attacking China, he tweeted out, "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong."
To the NBA, suddenly "Fight for Freedom" is an "inappropriate comment" that warrants an apology.
Of course, what this is really about is that China is a big part of the NBA's international growth strategy, and so the league's executives are reticent to let a single tweet endanger its much larger business interests.
It also is not as if the NBA has a blanket policy of not allowing players and personnel to comment on any political matters.
In fact, the NBA has prided itself of having an open policy on political activism. 

Commissioner Adam Silver has said he sees his job as protecting players' free speech. 

When President Trump said he wouldn't invite the 2018 NBA champion to the White House, Silver boasted of the long tradition of activism in the NBA. 

"I'm proud of the fact that in this league our players, our coaches, our owners, feel comfortable expressing their political points of view," he said.
Of course, it's easy for the NBA to be all sanctimonious about speech when it means a star player calling an unpopular American president a "bum." 

But when it comes to a general manager having the temerity to tweet "Fight for Freedom," suddenly Silver cowers and a U.S. sports league has to impose totalitarian China's censorship rules on one of its executives.
Since, clearly the NBA only values money, above all else, if you care about freedom and are incensed by this decision, then there is only one way to send a message to them — by denying them any of yours.