Woke NBA groveling for China

tl;dr

capitalism makes cowards of us all

 

Wonder if this might have something to do with it.

 

I am tickled by this rare intersection of NBA Twitter and International Relations Twitter. Now the US sporting public, too, can enjoy high-handed lectures on the Chinese victim narrative/"Century of Humiliation", the sanctity of state sovereignty, and the importance of the feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese people. Valuable lessons being learned on both sides here -- US sports leagues are (hopefully) learning that the Chinese market is trickier than they imagined and not just a massive pot of money waiting to be exploited, and Chinese nationalists on the ground and in corporate suites are learning just how badly Americans can react when told they're not allowed to say something.

 

Not sure the NBA is more or less woke than Cathay Pacific airlines - which lost its CEO and its CCO over the same protests.

Next up, Starbucks. Starbucks Can't Afford a Misstep in Hong Kong

When does the US government chime in on behalf of free speech?

Or is its current incarnation insufficiently 'woke'?

 

Authoritarian regimes buy sneakers too.

 

Wonder when Americans will wake up and realize corporate America is abandoning them to chase larger markets in China and India? Oh who am I kidding? They never will.

 

When there is a new President.

 

Nixon was a hero when he opened up relations with China. The Olympics were seen as a "carrott" to help them improve human rights - various governments have argued economic relations will eventually help human rights as well. So we continue to act like Taiwan doesn't exist and rely on China to keep North Korea in check.

Words are cheap on both sides of the argument. Quit buying from China if they are so awful. Quit selling to China if they are so awful.

 

Harpers' piece from 2015

[Report] | The New China Syndrome, by Barry C. Lynn | Harper's Magazine

 

This is the same NBA that worked with the players to develop a policy during anthem protests, right? Or am I comparing apples and oranges?

 

With companies like Google and IBM already complicit in the Chinese surveillance state, I'm not sure what the gotcha is here.

Is Google insufficiently 'woke?'

How U.S. Tech Giants Are Helping to Build China’s Surveillance State

 

Well, the "policy" is, "do what you're told."

You have to suspect that left completely to their own devices, many leading NBA players would be happy to make public anti-Trump gestures. LeBron James and Steph Curry for two have been quite willing to say so.