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NBA's China dilemma: $4B at risk as Chinese TV cancels game broadcasts

577 points by Alupis 7y ago

mytailorisrich 7y ago
That's the point. The scale of China's reaction is obviously not because of the tweet itself but because of the trade war. The message is that the US have a lot to lose if China starts to also effectively blacklist American companies like the US try to do to Chinese companies... Edit: Someone should explain why now on HN a comment like this one that simply tries to look beyond the obvious and to discuss current issues with a bit more depth is received so negatively as soon as posted.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  Well, we saw with the USSR that decades of Cold War couldn't be defused politically but Levis and Coca Cola went a long way towards bridging the divide. Now we have China which is basketball-mad but the problem is we can't use the carrot of the NBA to entice them towards us as long as the NBA is willing to trade their product under China's terms for a big enough paycheque. The NBA's attempt to paint themselves as a non-participant is totally unacceptable. You either stand for something or you stand for nothing; you don't get to quietly profit from the situation while declaring you have no position. That's the "good people on both sides" argument we rightly called out as total BS.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    The NBA is about basketball, not about something that is quickly turning into McCarthyism. Demanding that they should 'stand for something' is behaving exactly how China and Chinese companies are accused of behaving. The concept of "enticing China towards the US" is also naive at best. China is not a small country that the US can turn into a satellite. It is a superpower with its own views and interests and however its political regime will evolve it will not be either aligned with or under the leadership of the US. The US government knows that and that is the problem they have with China.
    - dmitryminkovsky 7y ago
      Please see comments in this thread or Google about their standing for gender issues in the United States. They’ve positioned themselves as social conscious.
    - megaremote 7y ago
      Ok, fair. But how about them being free to not interfere with what their players and managers support?
    - bluesnowmonkey 7y ago
      Is that like how IBM was about business machines when they sold equipment to help Nazis with the Final Solution? Are living Uighur prisoners not being chopped up for their body parts, today?
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      It is true that the CCP loves capitalism without conscience. The owners of the NBA (and MLB/NFL) seem to like that idea too, but the league has posititioned itself differently, as having a social conscience. Which, BTW, is different to McCarthyism. (It's a real tell that you use that playbook BTW.) Culturally, China is not an exporter. It imports culture massively, but it isn't IP it can easily copy. Authoritarian regimes are usually pretty bad at creating cultural products, except the ones like gruesome museums. Though I'm looking forward to HK producing its own Ai Weiwei or Guo Jian.
  - vkou 7y ago
    This is a common self-aggrandizing misconception in the West, but Levis and Coca Cola didn't do shit to bring the USSR down. Neither did a half-senile actor from California banging his shoe on a desk, and yelling about tearing down a wall. Glasnost, Perestroika, Afghanistan, economic stagnation, and the growing squeamishness of the country's leadership to use mass violence for political repression did. If the economy of the USSR were growing 7% year over year, the Berlin wall would be six hundred feet tall by now, and communists would still be in charge of half of Europe. Change in superpowers comes from within, not from foreign grandstanding.
    - russler23 7y ago
      Khrushchev’s shoe incident happened 20 years before Reagan was president.
      - vkou 7y ago
        To explain, and ruin the joke: I am purposefully, and quite absurdly, conflating Khrushchev's rather embarrassing shoe debacle with the rather embarrassing overstatement of Reagan's oratorical prowess and influence, in the affair of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many people hold to the mistaken belief that he can take any credit for it. [1] [1] Occasionally, they trot out 'Star Wars bankrupts the Soviet Union' as his greatest triumph. No, it wasn't eight years of Star Wars that starved the Soviet Economy, it was eight decades of military spending taking up >40% of GDP.
- Hithredin 7y ago
  Because HN has generally smart and well thought comnents except when it come to china. Not sure why. Just take the article when China was first to ban the Boeing 737. Everyone here yell at bad china like in a tabloid forum...
5trokerac3 7y ago
Not all costs are monetary. The long term ramifications of our businesses cow-towing to mass-murdering authoritarians is far greater than potential profits.
- behringer 7y ago
  I can't tell if you're talking about china or america.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
    He's talking about China, don't be obtuse, America, while being horrendous abroad, is no where near as bad as China would be in Americas position if the treatment of their own subjects is any indication.
    - madiathomas 7y ago
      In what world is US better than China? China doesn't travel to other countries and directly kill millions of civilians like the United States. This website is so shitty when coming to defending the United States. I don't know why I continue to waste my time reading shitty pro-US propaganda on this website.
      - 5trokerac3 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequence... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Implications_for_citizens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Implicati... https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-prisoners-blindfolded-tied-up-leaked-drone-footage-2019-10?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-prisoners-bli... https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/chinas-re-education-through-labor-system-the-view-from-within/272913/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/ch...
        7y ago
m_eiman 7y ago
Good, there shouldn’t be money in sports.
- behringer 7y ago
  Why would anybody play sports then?
  - bearcobra 7y ago
    For fun and/or exercise
  - jakeva 7y ago
    Not that I agree with the original, but that's a bit like asking why would anybody play music or make art (activities that rarely involve money)? Because they enjoy it.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Though the parent is accurate that in our western society doing a thing because you enjoy it is punished, both monetarily and socially, because you're not efficiently using your time to make someone else some money.
      - derision 7y ago
        That couldn't be further from the truth
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      Certain people would of course still do so. But of comparable scale and quality? Maybe a few, truly-committed souls, but there would certainly be an impact. Without money, even if an artist produces one work, he will quite possibly lack the means to produce another. There is the argument that what the market wants is not always the "best" or "most innovative", but the value of art is basically determined by a "market" (even if the artist seeks validation rather than $$). It's a subjective matter, so such a problem is somewhat inherent.
stewartjarod 7y ago
We really cannot allow China to remove freedoms of speech
nostromo 7y ago
It's not much of a dilemma though, is it? Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. US companies should stop targeting China for growth. If they don't steal your IP completely, they'll eventually freeze you out like they just did the NBA. It's happened to many companies and will eventually happen to you too. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Also not new at all. Money talks, even if it means only saying the things the highest bidder allows you to say.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  There's a reason that, historically, fascists cozied up to the ownership class. People who operate on the assumption that they must profit over everything else are easily coerced into aligning their interests with those of fascists.
  - pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
    "ownership class"??? Just say Jews.
  - ransom1538 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp
  - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    China has intentionally conflated dealings with government cartels with capitalist enterprise. Its just a means to obscure what would otherwise be called "treason" and sweep under the rug any notion that your business can be, "nationalized" at their whim. I don't understand how American businesses didn't learn their lesson in Cuba in the 60's?
    - coldtea 7y ago
tibbydudeza 7y ago
Well give them a handout as the US soybean farmers got for Chinese cutting imports due to trade war ... this is no different. You either engage with China and turn a blind eye to their internal repression or totally decouple yourself from them ... can't have your cake and eat it.
- bigYahnz 7y ago
  So, the obvious answer is to decouple and fight back, no? Anyone else find it almost humorous how people like to constantly talk about concentration camps from ww2 or slavery but are able to turn a blind eye to countries that still have such practices? Does the average American not even have the fucking backbone to endure some financial instability in exchange for our long term benefit / survival? People should be CHEERING Trump's willingness to fight. Anyone suggesting we should kneel before our new masters is a traitor and should be dealt with as such.
tw04 7y ago
The NBA really needs to grow a spine on this one. They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. It will just be one more reminder for the populace that their current government restricts them from luxuries the rest of the world gets to experience. And if that doesn't bother them, good riddance I guess, it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever.
- munk-a 7y ago
  They have everything to lose and it's quite sane for them to back down from this fight. The NBA isn't our government, just because our politicians are spineless and fawning doesn't mean companies need to take up the fight. That all said it'd be awesome if they chose to push back even though it's entirely destructive to themselves.
  - ellius 7y ago
    Why is it any less the responsibility of American businessmen than American politicians? We're a nation of free people, and we all share in both the benefits and responsibilities of freedom. You don't get to pretend to be an American and then put your head in the sand and say, "Oh I'm just a businessman." If that's your first loyalty then fine, but at least be straight about it and don't try to have it both ways with this "we love free expression but the dollars, sorry" crap.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      It absolutely is the responsibility of American businessmen, but the question wasn't about businessmen it was about the NBA - the NBA is a corporation with no fealty, loyalty or citizenship within any country in the world. I think in America there has been a hard push to prevent government control into various companies - just because this scenario is about decrying a foreign entity instead of the US flexing power domestically (i.e. via warrantless wiretapping) doesn't change the fact that, at a basic level, it's the same exact problem. Lastly, there are no American corporations, nothing should be given to them because they're assumed to be American and nothing should be expected of them - anything required of them should be encoded into law so that one corporation can't exploit the morally correct decision of another corporation as a weakness.
i_am_nomad 7y ago
The NBA boycotted North Carolina over HB2 (the “bathroom bill”), but doesn’t have a problem doing business in China. I hope they go bankrupt.
- landcoctos 7y ago
  I completely agree.
- yummypaint 7y ago
  Exactly this. They have no claim of neutrality or being apolitical. They have already demonstrated that losing money for the sake of attacking lgbt rights is a sacrifice they're willing to make. The values of team owners and major nba stakeholders are already more in line with the ccp than the american public, so let them choke on our scorn. It's our collective responsibility to do them enough financial damage that this becomes a learning experience.
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    I’ll expand on this by pulling two sequential quotations in the article from NBA commissioner Adam Silver: "It is inevitable that people around the world -- including America and China -- will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences.” Bullshit, see North Carolina. “However, the NBA 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." Bullshit, see Donald Sterling.
    - adamiscool8 7y ago
      I agree with your callout of the NBA's blatant hypocrisy on adjudicating political issues, but Donald Sterling's comments were definitely not a good faith contribution regarding an issue of public contention.
    - cthalupa 7y ago
      >Bullshit, see Donald Sterling. Yeah, blatant racism, including against some of the biggest stars in the NBA's history, is definitely the same thing here. That's not regulating political discourse - that's not allowing a racist to be in a position of power over the very people he is prejudiced against.
Shivetya 7y ago
NBA? How about the US government? I know in another post I made the point that we could not just call out Blizzard or other game companies but instead have to call out ALL companies that do business in China and worse crack down on their own and related who dare say something China does not approve of. However the real party that has to be taken to task is our own governments. In the US that means both Congress and the Administration. That means all candidates for President need to state their stance NOW. How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses or governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news edit:recently we have had major issues with privacy concerns, losing freedom of speech is a form of that as well.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  >How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses or governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news EU governments and companies bend over for China way easier than in the US as there's a huge lack on unity in the EU where it's every country for itself like when China protested on Norway's leaders not meeting the Dalai Lama and Norway complied.[1] [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-leaders-snub-dalai-lama-in-deference-to-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-lead...
  - baq 7y ago
    It’d be much worse if what you say was completely true, though certainly there are idiot countries trying to fool everyone including themselves that doing business with dictators is good for them.
  - tasubotadas 7y ago
    Not quite true. * Vilnius takes down ads after China promotes unsanctioned commemoration – 'it's a geopolitical provocation' [1] * Lithuania hands note to China over incident during Hong Kong support rally in Vilnius [2] [1] https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1100141/vilnius-takes-down-ads-after-china-promotes-unsanctioned-commemoration-it-s-a-geopolitical-provocation-says-mp https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1100141/viln... [2] https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1093636/lithuania-hands-note-to-china-over-incident-during-hong-kong-support-rally-in-vilnius https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1093636/lith... Edit: Included titles
0xdead 7y ago
God, how are these Chinese people offended so easily?
bilbo0s 7y ago
Is this a dilemma though? In fact, the more I think about this, is this even a problem? I've been on Weibo a bit looking at reactions to all this, and here's the thing, if your average mainlander is upset and no longer wants to have anything to do with you, which, judging from the volume of comments seems to be true, why is that necessarily a problem? People can say whatever they want. And other people can associate with whoever they want. Again, the more I thought about it, the more it struck me as simple Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association in action. Fine. Just don't watch NBA anymore. You have the CBA anyway. No worries and no hard feelings. You do your thing in China and we'll do ours in the US.
- qiaoliang89 7y ago
  cool
kevin_b_er 7y ago
Deryl Morey has learned the power Chinese Communist Interests have over his human rights. China has instilled fear in the NBA that they must kowtow or suffer monetarily. None of them are allowed to question the crimes against humanity the CPC commits on its own people. The NBA has a choice between human rights and money. Of course they chose money. US culture has been designed around money and greed so long it has forgotten principals it was supposedly founded on. Sure we fought a civil war over human rights vs greed, but that was a long time ago. After right-wing interests outsourced all the production and jobs for money in the past few decades, Steve Jobs was right: Those jobs aren't coming back.
whitebread 7y ago
Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? Self-made is a myth, and an NBA owner just released a book titled "Shut Up and Listen." Money talks, and it seems pretty clear that all of the moves previously made were actually for profits, not social causes.
- duxup 7y ago
  >Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? I'm not sure that user is pushing a particular agenda you describe. Nor does the name of a book prove much of anything.
  - Mathnerd314 7y ago
    It proves that you're too lazy to read, which is generally the winning point in an argument.
    - CountSessine 7y ago
      I wonder - did @whitebread actually read "Shut Up and Listen"? He doesn't even seem to understand that the title of the book is an exhortation to business owners and leaders that they need to listen to their customers? Even the last chapter is titled, "If You Want to Lead, Listen First".
    - duxup 7y ago
      I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I did not read the book in question if that is what you're saying. Did you? Can you tell me why the title matters as far as "Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires?" goes?
    - dang 7y ago
      Personal attacks will get you banned here. Would you please stick to the site guidelines on HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sorenn111 7y ago
peignoir 7y ago
South Park made the best analysis of this :) cf the last episode
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
artur_makly 7y ago
This says it all: https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china
- scotty79 7y ago
  This got me to watch some South Park. I was at least few seasons behind. The show is still interesting and has some strong episodes. Episode "Dead Kids" for example (about school shootings) is amazing, and its ending is absolutely brutal. I know it will stay with me for years. https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-kids https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-kids
mocha_nate 7y ago
Streisand effect potential for the US?
pitt1980 7y ago
ctrl+f "free speech" comes back empty ------ ------ The 1st amendment only protects you from the US government, not the Chinese government this seems like a good example of why we need to rethink "...but not the consequences of that speech!"
fhood 7y ago
China presents a huge opportunity for growth to the NBA, and this is a really crucial period for them as it seems like the NFL's stranglehold might be weakening and extra money to reinvest might help that process. I don't understand how people can act like losing the Chinese market is some sort of trivial decision?!? I would love for the NBA to stand up to China on this issue, but it IS NOT AN EASY OR OBVIOUS DECISION.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Money or surrender to evil. It's pretty simple.
  - Ygg2 7y ago
    Seeing how we live in capitalism - money it is. Remember when Google, promised it wouldn't kowtow to China? Then kowtowed anyway.
    - cromwellian 7y ago
      It was stopped by the employees tho.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      Except they didn't. Project Dragonfly was cancelled after Google employees rebelled against it. A better example would be how Apple quietly shared iCloud user data with the Chinese government.
  - est 7y ago
    money is evil. It's either evil or two evils.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      Money is not evil, the love of money is.
- diveanon 7y ago
ashelmire 7y ago
I find it interesting that there isn't a Boycott / Divest / Sanctions movement for China, despite the human rights abuses they've always committed, in addition to more recently holding people in concentration camps. Surely their offenses are far more egregious than Israel's? Where's the movement for Hong Kong, for the Uighur? Does anyone know of such an effort?
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  Unlike BDS, decoupling from China will require real tangible sacrifices and effort and can create serious pushback. Israel punches way above it's weight both geopolitical and economically, but they are still not big player. Most people are activists only when it is safe, cheap and convenient.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Well, what would we do though? I mean, start boycotting China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Rwanda, etc, etc etc. I mean, I guess I should ask, in your view, where would that stop? Boycott every nation in the world with human rights violations?
  - thelittleone 7y ago
    You could do that, or just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about. Any action is better than inaction.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      >just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about. That's the rub. That's the same thing as saying you don't necessarily mind doing business with human rights abusers, as long as you don't feel too strongly about the people being abused.
      - ashelmire 7y ago
        I don't think that's true. It's saying that you're going to make as many changes as you reasonably can in your life. Perfect is the enemy of good. (And only a sith deals in absolutes!)
PavlovsCat 7y ago
I know what "4 billion at risk" means, but I still can't help but be reminded of this: > This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. -- Douglas Adams
narrator 7y ago
How about getting your morality and your values from organized religion or your personal spirituality and not from a bunch of multi-millionaires who throw a ball around? Organized religion is not allowed in China either. You know something is allowed in China if it traces all its authority back to exist back to the party. That's how communism has always operated. The success of the party was the highest goal of highest goals that lead to all the purges and terrors throughout history.
libertine 7y ago
This reminds me of a story a teacher of mine told in a Advertising class, about a retailer that put pressure on a soda maker to lower prices, or they wouldn't give them share of shelf. Well the soda maker didn't agree, so they pulled the inventory out. Weeks later the retailer came back to invite them in at the same rates. Apparently the customers weren't happy that their favorite soda wasn't available, and made sure to let the staff know. If China starts to pull the plug on unique products and services, I believe there's going to be a ripple effect. I'm pretty sure there are millions of people in China that still enjoy the NBA, despite NBA's stance on what ever the subject is. This will add up. Maybe the fear of instability through Western propaganda should be matched by the instability that the actualization of censorship is alive and well, via the ban of content people like. Maybe not.
- echelon 7y ago
  If every western luxury disappeared from China overnight, I think they'd struggle to come up with domestic replacements quickly enough.
- xlc0212 7y ago
  I want to point it out it is not only Chinese government, but also Chinese people, the people were enjoying the NBA, are abandoning it. This actually hurts the feeling of the fans.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    Only because they are brainwashed by saturation lifelong propaganda. Also hello to the MSS sockpuppet accounts joining the debate.
    - xlc0212 7y ago
      They maybe brainwashed, but so does a lot of other people.
      - chadcmulligan 7y ago
diveanon 7y ago
A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will be a key issue for me in 2020. What is happening to the NBA, Blizzard, and seemingly every company that has a presence in China is the tip of the iceberg. If we as a liberal free society cannot stand against the rise of oppressive totalitarianism then we are doomed to fail. Incremental profits and potential market share in a closed economy is not worth the values we are sacrificing in the process. If you are a C-level executive at a company doing business in China these issues need to addressed at the board level. What is the level of influence that the Chinese government is exerting on you and your morals. Your stance should be clear: You either support the people of HK and their fight for representation in government, or you support the totalitarian regime that is oppressing them and hundreds of millions of other Chinese citizens.
- est 7y ago
  > A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will be a key issue for me in 2020. Your presidential candidate need to fix human rights issues in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Democracy installed by the US government gotta have a warranty and customer service. If the outcome of US installed human rights means tens of thousands of refugees and jihad fighters how can your model of human rights even work in a 1.4B population China?
  - shard972 7y ago
    Why do they need to do any of that?
  - diveanon 7y ago
    You can't have it both ways, we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to elect a representative government, it is not our place to complain about the representatives they elected. How many revolutions and dictatorships did the French have to go through until they settled on a system that works for them?
    - est 7y ago
      I guess it's the user's fault for not understanding the product.
rsync 7y ago
What if this blows up in the other direction ? How many Chinese will pay attention to "whatever those people are doing in Hong Kong" for the first time because of this ? Which is to say, what if lots of young Chinese stand up and take notice that they can't watch world class professional basketball anymore ? I am well aware that there is homegrown professional basketball in China, but the $4B number suggests they want to watch the NBA, which isn't surprising. It's not obvious to me that, from the position of youth in China, the state holds the winning hand here ...
- tanilama 7y ago
  > Which is to say, what if lots of young Chinese stand up and take notice that they can't watch world class professional basketball anymore ? It is arguably the Young that start this online campaign to call NBA out. The government/brands follow the suits. The tension is high. I think watching NBA is soon to be deemed as unpatriotic by social media, and that will be one of the long-lasting legacy of this event.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    I wonder if you'll now lose social credit for watching NBA / wearing NBA products?
    - tanilama 7y ago
      Social credit in a public shaming sense maybe.
- somethoughts 7y ago
  Its curious how could you pitch the cancellation of these NBA games to the audience expecting to watch these NBA games without causing a Streisand effect [1]? If you mention the tweet, will they want to seek out and find the tweet? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
  - 7y ago
throwaway122378 7y ago
No one giving Trump a little credit for pro actively working on putting an end to Chinese theft?
smkellat 7y ago
Sometimes in trade and negotiations the most powerful tool is being able to walk away. Relative to the PRC, it is past time that we start walking away. There are certainly other partners available on the metaphorical dance card who are easier to deal with.
SilasX 7y ago
Is it just me, or are there a lot of stories now about China throwing its financial weight around to influence speech? We had the Blizzard/War of Omens thing [1], and the Houston Rockets remark being rescinded [2], and the South Park cancellation [3], and now this, all in the span of about a week. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-from-hearthstone-grand-masters-after-his-public-support-for-hong-kong-protests/ https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-from-h... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-deletes-tweet-about-hong-kong.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-del... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_park_scrubbed_from_chinese_internet_after/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_par...
- habitue 7y ago
  Well, there's a common cause right? The protests in HK
  - SilasX 7y ago
    Yeah but that’s been going on for months and it feels like there’s a sudden surge (though I don’t have the stats to rigorously prove a sudden change).
    - ljp_206 7y ago
      I agree with you. It's even now the talk of the relatively apolitical office.
- repolfx 7y ago
  Also the UBS pig incident: https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-donovan/ https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-donovan/ That one wasn't even anything apparently political, just absurd snowflake-scale sensitivity on the part of a whole country: Donovan made the “Chinese pig” comment on Wednesday as he attempted to explain why the country’s swine flu outbreak shouldn’t concern investors eyeing the international inflation outlook. “Does this matter? It matters if you are a Chinese pig,” Donovan said. “It matters if you like eating pork in China. It does not really matter to the rest of the world. China does not export a lot of food. The only global relevance would be if Chinese inflation influenced politics and other policies.” Somehow the second sentence got interpreted as an insult - or was it just part of a trend of throwing weight around, as you suggest? One of China’s biggest state-owned infrastructure companies excluded UBS Group AG from a bond deal after the bank’s global chief economist sparked a furor with his use of the phrase “Chinese pig.” The comment was condemned by two Communist Party publications and by trade groups representing Chinese brokerages. Haitong International Securities Group, which competes against UBS for China-related business, said on Friday that it had suspended its activities with the bank. Honestly, having watched this sort of stuff for years my own business interest in China is dead. Yes, it's a big market. But you can live very comfortably serving the rest of the world. Facebook and Google are banned there, they still mint more money than they can spend. Ignoring that market completely seems like a recipe for a much simpler life.
zenlot 7y ago
Why recent articles on HN related to ICE were flagged and this one not? It's political too, double standards?
jackschultz 7y ago
Fun to see the NBA come up on HN. One topic to bring up is how the NBA is targeting India as it's next country to try to bring basketball to [0]. What should happen to comments people might have about the India-Pakistan boarder conflict? Would the people here commenting about how rich people shouldn't be targeting China for money and growth complain about the NBA looking to grow in other markets? They've grown incredibly large in Europe over the past couple decades. Yes for money, but also popularity is fun to have, and amazing stories of players from those places. I suppose my current stance on this, and a stance after only a few days and reading comments and posts from so many people which might change later or after responses to my comment here, is that the NBA should wave its hands and say the other countries can do what they want in terms of not even admitting the Rockets exist, or hide games completely, but reiterate that the players, GMs, and even owners, can say what they want, and that the NBA can and should continue to push the NBA to other markets. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-scli/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-scli/...)
resters 7y ago
I can't believe the way that Trump's anti-China rhetoric is so eagerly supported by so many people. China is just being China, what has changed is that the Trump administration is trying to raise the stakes on its trade war.
kvrk2000s 7y ago
"Band in China"
ausjke 7y ago
money or free-speech, which one will you pick if it's you?
ineedasername 7y ago
This reminds me of the issues faced by people developing apps that compete with facebook, or apps that offer a nice feature for iOS. There's always the risk that an ecosystem you don't control will turn on you, or change the rules of the game. Except with China it's 1000x worse. It's not an app, it's not just an extra feature, it's the wholesale export of their authoritarian society to the rest of the world. When the statements of a user of your system (as with Hearthstone) risks your company being banned in China, self-censorship inevitably ensues. How long will it be until China insists that anyone, anywhere be deplatformed for this sort of thing?
raldi 7y ago
If you really want a revolution, take away the people's favorite televised sports.
tonyaiken 7y ago
Why there are so many political news on HN?
not2b 7y ago
They might as well give up that money now. The conditions on keeping it will only become more draconian with time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
NicoJuicy 7y ago
Didn't China say they are willing to open their market more. So, I think this proves that nothing changes. I'd be supprised that any TV-channel could show a Winnie the Pooh figure ever again. It's like one big kindergarden, but for >1 billion people.
ilaksh 7y ago
The problem is that the type of moral outrage in this thread is exactly the kind of thing that is necessary to motivate mass killing (otherwise known as war). War is an appropriate conflict resolution approach for ant colonies, but not for people. I hope people here realize that.
malloreon 7y ago
The moment the money becomes more important than the morality, the morality leaves, never to return.
ulkram 7y ago
Just realize that you are most likely using Phones/Computers made in China to call out the NBA.
RenRav 7y ago
The 4 Billion Dollar Tweet. That will surely end up as the title on some future youtube video.
aty268 7y ago
If anyone is curious about what the pro China arguments look like: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls_blitzchung_from_hearthstone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls...
myself248 7y ago
> "We believe any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability do not belong to the category of free speech," CCTV Sports said in a statement. I wonder what "free" does mean to them, then.
tomohawk 7y ago
NBA also invested in a training camp in Xinjiang. https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/ https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/ Meanwhile, millions of Uyghurs are being imprisoned nearby in concentration camps.
rdlecler1 7y ago
The NBA should get up and leave China on principle. I don’t doubt that this would be more than made up for by fans around the world.
lacker 7y ago
Soon you will get kicked out of an NBA game if you wear a shirt that says “Free Hong Kong”.
on_and_off 7y ago
Hey, free speech is also at risk but who cares when there is money involved ?
m0zg 7y ago
This must be especially painful for Kerr who's known for his unhinged, incessant railing against Trump, and who is now quite willingly licking the boots of Xi Jinping, the real, actual dictator. Ready and willing to be woke, but only as long as it's good for business. When there's money at stake, though, murderous dictatorships are totally fine, and nothing to rail against.
asdfgfdsa1 7y ago
For all you kids, do you know what happens in Hongkong? Don't just use "protest", check some video from the other side. Look for Molotov cocktails, punching innocent people, burning stores, ruining public services, threaten policeman's families, does any of these seem OK for you all? If you don't see those stuff, the most easy one is searching for police shooting, how did that shoot happen? What happened right after the shoot? Yes, Molotov cocktail! Those riots are ruining other peoples life. free speech, but don't build it another people's feelings, think about the Clipper's, if NBA don't do it, someone will do it. There's more on basketball than NBA.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Well I have to give it to that old stopped clock Barry Goldwater who in one of his two correct moments said "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice". Oh except for that punching innocent people thing, which is bad. I like how you snuck that one in there.
majia 7y ago
What if Moray says something to support Palestine freedom and human rights? Would NBA support Moray or Israel?
lvwu123 7y ago
Its clearly that Morey using his influence that NBA gave to loudly interrupt others business at PUBLIC. By the way I am Chinese and stay at China. I like Basketball sport very much.
j-c-hewitt 7y ago
If you want to do business in China, you have to comply with Chinese laws including those on speech. If you do not want to comply with those laws, you cannot do business in China. Both are fine and both are legal, but you cannot have it both ways at the same time. You cannot flout the laws in China and continue to do business in China. This should also be reciprocal: Chinese companies should not be able to do business in the United States while flouting the laws of the United States.

577 points by Alupis 7y ago

That's the point. The scale of China's reaction is obviously not because of the tweet itself but because of the trade war. The message is that the US have a lot to lose if China starts to also effectively blacklist American companies like the US try to do to Chinese companies... Edit: Someone should explain why now on HN a comment like this one that simply tries to look beyond the obvious and to discuss current issues with a bit more depth is received so negatively as soon as posted.

ticmasta 7y ago
Well, we saw with the USSR that decades of Cold War couldn't be defused politically but Levis and Coca Cola went a long way towards bridging the divide. Now we have China which is basketball-mad but the problem is we can't use the carrot of the NBA to entice them towards us as long as the NBA is willing to trade their product under China's terms for a big enough paycheque. The NBA's attempt to paint themselves as a non-participant is totally unacceptable. You either stand for something or you stand for nothing; you don't get to quietly profit from the situation while declaring you have no position. That's the "good people on both sides" argument we rightly called out as total BS.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  The NBA is about basketball, not about something that is quickly turning into McCarthyism. Demanding that they should 'stand for something' is behaving exactly how China and Chinese companies are accused of behaving. The concept of "enticing China towards the US" is also naive at best. China is not a small country that the US can turn into a satellite. It is a superpower with its own views and interests and however its political regime will evolve it will not be either aligned with or under the leadership of the US. The US government knows that and that is the problem they have with China.
  - dmitryminkovsky 7y ago
    Please see comments in this thread or Google about their standing for gender issues in the United States. They’ve positioned themselves as social conscious.
  - megaremote 7y ago
    Ok, fair. But how about them being free to not interfere with what their players and managers support?
  - bluesnowmonkey 7y ago
    Is that like how IBM was about business machines when they sold equipment to help Nazis with the Final Solution? Are living Uighur prisoners not being chopped up for their body parts, today?
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    It is true that the CCP loves capitalism without conscience. The owners of the NBA (and MLB/NFL) seem to like that idea too, but the league has posititioned itself differently, as having a social conscience. Which, BTW, is different to McCarthyism. (It's a real tell that you use that playbook BTW.) Culturally, China is not an exporter. It imports culture massively, but it isn't IP it can easily copy. Authoritarian regimes are usually pretty bad at creating cultural products, except the ones like gruesome museums. Though I'm looking forward to HK producing its own Ai Weiwei or Guo Jian.
- vkou 7y ago
  This is a common self-aggrandizing misconception in the West, but Levis and Coca Cola didn't do shit to bring the USSR down. Neither did a half-senile actor from California banging his shoe on a desk, and yelling about tearing down a wall. Glasnost, Perestroika, Afghanistan, economic stagnation, and the growing squeamishness of the country's leadership to use mass violence for political repression did. If the economy of the USSR were growing 7% year over year, the Berlin wall would be six hundred feet tall by now, and communists would still be in charge of half of Europe. Change in superpowers comes from within, not from foreign grandstanding.
  - russler23 7y ago
    Khrushchev’s shoe incident happened 20 years before Reagan was president.
    - vkou 7y ago
      To explain, and ruin the joke: I am purposefully, and quite absurdly, conflating Khrushchev's rather embarrassing shoe debacle with the rather embarrassing overstatement of Reagan's oratorical prowess and influence, in the affair of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many people hold to the mistaken belief that he can take any credit for it. [1] [1] Occasionally, they trot out 'Star Wars bankrupts the Soviet Union' as his greatest triumph. No, it wasn't eight years of Star Wars that starved the Soviet Economy, it was eight decades of military spending taking up >40% of GDP.
Hithredin 7y ago
Because HN has generally smart and well thought comnents except when it come to china. Not sure why. Just take the article when China was first to ban the Boeing 737. Everyone here yell at bad china like in a tabloid forum...

5trokerac3 7y ago

Not all costs are monetary. The long term ramifications of our businesses cow-towing to mass-murdering authoritarians is far greater than potential profits.

behringer 7y ago
I can't tell if you're talking about china or america.
- SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
  He's talking about China, don't be obtuse, America, while being horrendous abroad, is no where near as bad as China would be in Americas position if the treatment of their own subjects is any indication.
  - madiathomas 7y ago
    In what world is US better than China? China doesn't travel to other countries and directly kill millions of civilians like the United States. This website is so shitty when coming to defending the United States. I don't know why I continue to waste my time reading shitty pro-US propaganda on this website.
    - 5trokerac3 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequence... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Implications_for_citizens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Implicati... https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-prisoners-blindfolded-tied-up-leaked-drone-footage-2019-10?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-prisoners-bli... https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/chinas-re-education-through-labor-system-the-view-from-within/272913/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/ch...
      - 7y ago

m_eiman 7y ago

Good, there shouldn’t be money in sports.

behringer 7y ago
Why would anybody play sports then?
- bearcobra 7y ago
  For fun and/or exercise
- jakeva 7y ago
  Not that I agree with the original, but that's a bit like asking why would anybody play music or make art (activities that rarely involve money)? Because they enjoy it.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Though the parent is accurate that in our western society doing a thing because you enjoy it is punished, both monetarily and socially, because you're not efficiently using your time to make someone else some money.
    - derision 7y ago
      That couldn't be further from the truth
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    Certain people would of course still do so. But of comparable scale and quality? Maybe a few, truly-committed souls, but there would certainly be an impact. Without money, even if an artist produces one work, he will quite possibly lack the means to produce another. There is the argument that what the market wants is not always the "best" or "most innovative", but the value of art is basically determined by a "market" (even if the artist seeks validation rather than $$). It's a subjective matter, so such a problem is somewhat inherent.

stewartjarod 7y ago

We really cannot allow China to remove freedoms of speech

nostromo 7y ago

It's not much of a dilemma though, is it? Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. US companies should stop targeting China for growth. If they don't steal your IP completely, they'll eventually freeze you out like they just did the NBA. It's happened to many companies and will eventually happen to you too. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

journalctl 7y ago
Also not new at all. Money talks, even if it means only saying the things the highest bidder allows you to say.
heavyset_go 7y ago
There's a reason that, historically, fascists cozied up to the ownership class. People who operate on the assumption that they must profit over everything else are easily coerced into aligning their interests with those of fascists.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  "ownership class"??? Just say Jews.
- ransom1538 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  China has intentionally conflated dealings with government cartels with capitalist enterprise. Its just a means to obscure what would otherwise be called "treason" and sweep under the rug any notion that your business can be, "nationalized" at their whim. I don't understand how American businesses didn't learn their lesson in Cuba in the 60's?
  - coldtea 7y ago

tibbydudeza 7y ago

Well give them a handout as the US soybean farmers got for Chinese cutting imports due to trade war ... this is no different. You either engage with China and turn a blind eye to their internal repression or totally decouple yourself from them ... can't have your cake and eat it.

bigYahnz 7y ago
So, the obvious answer is to decouple and fight back, no? Anyone else find it almost humorous how people like to constantly talk about concentration camps from ww2 or slavery but are able to turn a blind eye to countries that still have such practices? Does the average American not even have the fucking backbone to endure some financial instability in exchange for our long term benefit / survival? People should be CHEERING Trump's willingness to fight. Anyone suggesting we should kneel before our new masters is a traitor and should be dealt with as such.

tw04 7y ago

The NBA really needs to grow a spine on this one. They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. It will just be one more reminder for the populace that their current government restricts them from luxuries the rest of the world gets to experience. And if that doesn't bother them, good riddance I guess, it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever.

munk-a 7y ago
They have everything to lose and it's quite sane for them to back down from this fight. The NBA isn't our government, just because our politicians are spineless and fawning doesn't mean companies need to take up the fight. That all said it'd be awesome if they chose to push back even though it's entirely destructive to themselves.
- ellius 7y ago
  Why is it any less the responsibility of American businessmen than American politicians? We're a nation of free people, and we all share in both the benefits and responsibilities of freedom. You don't get to pretend to be an American and then put your head in the sand and say, "Oh I'm just a businessman." If that's your first loyalty then fine, but at least be straight about it and don't try to have it both ways with this "we love free expression but the dollars, sorry" crap.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    It absolutely is the responsibility of American businessmen, but the question wasn't about businessmen it was about the NBA - the NBA is a corporation with no fealty, loyalty or citizenship within any country in the world. I think in America there has been a hard push to prevent government control into various companies - just because this scenario is about decrying a foreign entity instead of the US flexing power domestically (i.e. via warrantless wiretapping) doesn't change the fact that, at a basic level, it's the same exact problem. Lastly, there are no American corporations, nothing should be given to them because they're assumed to be American and nothing should be expected of them - anything required of them should be encoded into law so that one corporation can't exploit the morally correct decision of another corporation as a weakness.

i_am_nomad 7y ago

The NBA boycotted North Carolina over HB2 (the “bathroom bill”), but doesn’t have a problem doing business in China. I hope they go bankrupt.

landcoctos 7y ago
I completely agree.
yummypaint 7y ago
Exactly this. They have no claim of neutrality or being apolitical. They have already demonstrated that losing money for the sake of attacking lgbt rights is a sacrifice they're willing to make. The values of team owners and major nba stakeholders are already more in line with the ccp than the american public, so let them choke on our scorn. It's our collective responsibility to do them enough financial damage that this becomes a learning experience.
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  I’ll expand on this by pulling two sequential quotations in the article from NBA commissioner Adam Silver: "It is inevitable that people around the world -- including America and China -- will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences.” Bullshit, see North Carolina. “However, the NBA 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." Bullshit, see Donald Sterling.
  - adamiscool8 7y ago
    I agree with your callout of the NBA's blatant hypocrisy on adjudicating political issues, but Donald Sterling's comments were definitely not a good faith contribution regarding an issue of public contention.
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    >Bullshit, see Donald Sterling. Yeah, blatant racism, including against some of the biggest stars in the NBA's history, is definitely the same thing here. That's not regulating political discourse - that's not allowing a racist to be in a position of power over the very people he is prejudiced against.

Shivetya 7y ago

NBA? How about the US government? I know in another post I made the point that we could not just call out Blizzard or other game companies but instead have to call out ALL companies that do business in China and worse crack down on their own and related who dare say something China does not approve of. However the real party that has to be taken to task is our own governments. In the US that means both Congress and the Administration. That means all candidates for President need to state their stance NOW. How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses or governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news edit:recently we have had major issues with privacy concerns, losing freedom of speech is a form of that as well.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago
>How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses or governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news EU governments and companies bend over for China way easier than in the US as there's a huge lack on unity in the EU where it's every country for itself like when China protested on Norway's leaders not meeting the Dalai Lama and Norway complied.[1] [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-leaders-snub-dalai-lama-in-deference-to-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-lead...
- baq 7y ago
  It’d be much worse if what you say was completely true, though certainly there are idiot countries trying to fool everyone including themselves that doing business with dictators is good for them.
- tasubotadas 7y ago
  Not quite true. * Vilnius takes down ads after China promotes unsanctioned commemoration – 'it's a geopolitical provocation' [1] * Lithuania hands note to China over incident during Hong Kong support rally in Vilnius [2] [1] https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1100141/vilnius-takes-down-ads-after-china-promotes-unsanctioned-commemoration-it-s-a-geopolitical-provocation-says-mp https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1100141/viln... [2] https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1093636/lithuania-hands-note-to-china-over-incident-during-hong-kong-support-rally-in-vilnius https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-english/19/1093636/lith... Edit: Included titles

0xdead 7y ago

God, how are these Chinese people offended so easily?

bilbo0s 7y ago

Is this a dilemma though? In fact, the more I think about this, is this even a problem? I've been on Weibo a bit looking at reactions to all this, and here's the thing, if your average mainlander is upset and no longer wants to have anything to do with you, which, judging from the volume of comments seems to be true, why is that necessarily a problem? People can say whatever they want. And other people can associate with whoever they want. Again, the more I thought about it, the more it struck me as simple Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association in action. Fine. Just don't watch NBA anymore. You have the CBA anyway. No worries and no hard feelings. You do your thing in China and we'll do ours in the US.

qiaoliang89 7y ago
cool

kevin_b_er 7y ago

Deryl Morey has learned the power Chinese Communist Interests have over his human rights. China has instilled fear in the NBA that they must kowtow or suffer monetarily. None of them are allowed to question the crimes against humanity the CPC commits on its own people. The NBA has a choice between human rights and money. Of course they chose money. US culture has been designed around money and greed so long it has forgotten principals it was supposedly founded on. Sure we fought a civil war over human rights vs greed, but that was a long time ago. After right-wing interests outsourced all the production and jobs for money in the past few decades, Steve Jobs was right: Those jobs aren't coming back.

whitebread 7y ago

Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? Self-made is a myth, and an NBA owner just released a book titled "Shut Up and Listen." Money talks, and it seems pretty clear that all of the moves previously made were actually for profits, not social causes.

duxup 7y ago
>Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? I'm not sure that user is pushing a particular agenda you describe. Nor does the name of a book prove much of anything.
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  It proves that you're too lazy to read, which is generally the winning point in an argument.
  - CountSessine 7y ago
    I wonder - did @whitebread actually read "Shut Up and Listen"? He doesn't even seem to understand that the title of the book is an exhortation to business owners and leaders that they need to listen to their customers? Even the last chapter is titled, "If You Want to Lead, Listen First".
  - duxup 7y ago
    I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I did not read the book in question if that is what you're saying. Did you? Can you tell me why the title matters as far as "Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires?" goes?
  - dang 7y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned here. Would you please stick to the site guidelines on HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
sorenn111 7y ago

peignoir 7y ago

South Park made the best analysis of this :) cf the last episode

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

artur_makly 7y ago

This says it all: https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china

scotty79 7y ago
This got me to watch some South Park. I was at least few seasons behind. The show is still interesting and has some strong episodes. Episode "Dead Kids" for example (about school shootings) is amazing, and its ending is absolutely brutal. I know it will stay with me for years. https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-kids https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-kids

mocha_nate 7y ago

Streisand effect potential for the US?

pitt1980 7y ago

ctrl+f "free speech" comes back empty ------ ------ The 1st amendment only protects you from the US government, not the Chinese government this seems like a good example of why we need to rethink "...but not the consequences of that speech!"

fhood 7y ago

China presents a huge opportunity for growth to the NBA, and this is a really crucial period for them as it seems like the NFL's stranglehold might be weakening and extra money to reinvest might help that process. I don't understand how people can act like losing the Chinese market is some sort of trivial decision?!? I would love for the NBA to stand up to China on this issue, but it IS NOT AN EASY OR OBVIOUS DECISION.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Money or surrender to evil. It's pretty simple.
- Ygg2 7y ago
  Seeing how we live in capitalism - money it is. Remember when Google, promised it wouldn't kowtow to China? Then kowtowed anyway.
  - cromwellian 7y ago
    It was stopped by the employees tho.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Except they didn't. Project Dragonfly was cancelled after Google employees rebelled against it. A better example would be how Apple quietly shared iCloud user data with the Chinese government.
- est 7y ago
  money is evil. It's either evil or two evils.
  - mensetmanusman 7y ago
    Money is not evil, the love of money is.
diveanon 7y ago

ashelmire 7y ago

I find it interesting that there isn't a Boycott / Divest / Sanctions movement for China, despite the human rights abuses they've always committed, in addition to more recently holding people in concentration camps. Surely their offenses are far more egregious than Israel's? Where's the movement for Hong Kong, for the Uighur? Does anyone know of such an effort?

ReptileMan 7y ago
Unlike BDS, decoupling from China will require real tangible sacrifices and effort and can create serious pushback. Israel punches way above it's weight both geopolitical and economically, but they are still not big player. Most people are activists only when it is safe, cheap and convenient.
bilbo0s 7y ago
Well, what would we do though? I mean, start boycotting China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Rwanda, etc, etc etc. I mean, I guess I should ask, in your view, where would that stop? Boycott every nation in the world with human rights violations?
- thelittleone 7y ago
  You could do that, or just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about. Any action is better than inaction.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    >just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about. That's the rub. That's the same thing as saying you don't necessarily mind doing business with human rights abusers, as long as you don't feel too strongly about the people being abused.
    - ashelmire 7y ago
      I don't think that's true. It's saying that you're going to make as many changes as you reasonably can in your life. Perfect is the enemy of good. (And only a sith deals in absolutes!)

PavlovsCat 7y ago

I know what "4 billion at risk" means, but I still can't help but be reminded of this: > This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. -- Douglas Adams

narrator 7y ago

How about getting your morality and your values from organized religion or your personal spirituality and not from a bunch of multi-millionaires who throw a ball around? Organized religion is not allowed in China either. You know something is allowed in China if it traces all its authority back to exist back to the party. That's how communism has always operated. The success of the party was the highest goal of highest goals that lead to all the purges and terrors throughout history.

libertine 7y ago

This reminds me of a story a teacher of mine told in a Advertising class, about a retailer that put pressure on a soda maker to lower prices, or they wouldn't give them share of shelf. Well the soda maker didn't agree, so they pulled the inventory out. Weeks later the retailer came back to invite them in at the same rates. Apparently the customers weren't happy that their favorite soda wasn't available, and made sure to let the staff know. If China starts to pull the plug on unique products and services, I believe there's going to be a ripple effect. I'm pretty sure there are millions of people in China that still enjoy the NBA, despite NBA's stance on what ever the subject is. This will add up. Maybe the fear of instability through Western propaganda should be matched by the instability that the actualization of censorship is alive and well, via the ban of content people like. Maybe not.

echelon 7y ago
If every western luxury disappeared from China overnight, I think they'd struggle to come up with domestic replacements quickly enough.
xlc0212 7y ago
I want to point it out it is not only Chinese government, but also Chinese people, the people were enjoying the NBA, are abandoning it. This actually hurts the feeling of the fans.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  Only because they are brainwashed by saturation lifelong propaganda. Also hello to the MSS sockpuppet accounts joining the debate.
  - xlc0212 7y ago
    They maybe brainwashed, but so does a lot of other people.
    - chadcmulligan 7y ago

diveanon 7y ago

A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will be a key issue for me in 2020. What is happening to the NBA, Blizzard, and seemingly every company that has a presence in China is the tip of the iceberg. If we as a liberal free society cannot stand against the rise of oppressive totalitarianism then we are doomed to fail. Incremental profits and potential market share in a closed economy is not worth the values we are sacrificing in the process. If you are a C-level executive at a company doing business in China these issues need to addressed at the board level. What is the level of influence that the Chinese government is exerting on you and your morals. Your stance should be clear: You either support the people of HK and their fight for representation in government, or you support the totalitarian regime that is oppressing them and hundreds of millions of other Chinese citizens.

est 7y ago
> A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will be a key issue for me in 2020. Your presidential candidate need to fix human rights issues in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Democracy installed by the US government gotta have a warranty and customer service. If the outcome of US installed human rights means tens of thousands of refugees and jihad fighters how can your model of human rights even work in a 1.4B population China?
- shard972 7y ago
  Why do they need to do any of that?
- diveanon 7y ago
  You can't have it both ways, we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to elect a representative government, it is not our place to complain about the representatives they elected. How many revolutions and dictatorships did the French have to go through until they settled on a system that works for them?
  - est 7y ago
    I guess it's the user's fault for not understanding the product.

rsync 7y ago

What if this blows up in the other direction ? How many Chinese will pay attention to "whatever those people are doing in Hong Kong" for the first time because of this ? Which is to say, what if lots of young Chinese stand up and take notice that they can't watch world class professional basketball anymore ? I am well aware that there is homegrown professional basketball in China, but the $4B number suggests they want to watch the NBA, which isn't surprising. It's not obvious to me that, from the position of youth in China, the state holds the winning hand here ...

tanilama 7y ago
> Which is to say, what if lots of young Chinese stand up and take notice that they can't watch world class professional basketball anymore ? It is arguably the Young that start this online campaign to call NBA out. The government/brands follow the suits. The tension is high. I think watching NBA is soon to be deemed as unpatriotic by social media, and that will be one of the long-lasting legacy of this event.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  I wonder if you'll now lose social credit for watching NBA / wearing NBA products?
  - tanilama 7y ago
    Social credit in a public shaming sense maybe.
somethoughts 7y ago
Its curious how could you pitch the cancellation of these NBA games to the audience expecting to watch these NBA games without causing a Streisand effect [1]? If you mention the tweet, will they want to seek out and find the tweet? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
- 7y ago

throwaway122378 7y ago

No one giving Trump a little credit for pro actively working on putting an end to Chinese theft?

smkellat 7y ago

Sometimes in trade and negotiations the most powerful tool is being able to walk away. Relative to the PRC, it is past time that we start walking away. There are certainly other partners available on the metaphorical dance card who are easier to deal with.

SilasX 7y ago

Is it just me, or are there a lot of stories now about China throwing its financial weight around to influence speech? We had the Blizzard/War of Omens thing [1], and the Houston Rockets remark being rescinded [2], and the South Park cancellation [3], and now this, all in the span of about a week. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-from-hearthstone-grand-masters-after-his-public-support-for-hong-kong-protests/ https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-from-h... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-deletes-tweet-about-hong-kong.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-del... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_park_scrubbed_from_chinese_internet_after/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_par...

habitue 7y ago
Well, there's a common cause right? The protests in HK
- SilasX 7y ago
  Yeah but that’s been going on for months and it feels like there’s a sudden surge (though I don’t have the stats to rigorously prove a sudden change).
  - ljp_206 7y ago
    I agree with you. It's even now the talk of the relatively apolitical office.
repolfx 7y ago
Also the UBS pig incident: https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-donovan/ https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-donovan/ That one wasn't even anything apparently political, just absurd snowflake-scale sensitivity on the part of a whole country: Donovan made the “Chinese pig” comment on Wednesday as he attempted to explain why the country’s swine flu outbreak shouldn’t concern investors eyeing the international inflation outlook. “Does this matter? It matters if you are a Chinese pig,” Donovan said. “It matters if you like eating pork in China. It does not really matter to the rest of the world. China does not export a lot of food. The only global relevance would be if Chinese inflation influenced politics and other policies.” Somehow the second sentence got interpreted as an insult - or was it just part of a trend of throwing weight around, as you suggest? One of China’s biggest state-owned infrastructure companies excluded UBS Group AG from a bond deal after the bank’s global chief economist sparked a furor with his use of the phrase “Chinese pig.” The comment was condemned by two Communist Party publications and by trade groups representing Chinese brokerages. Haitong International Securities Group, which competes against UBS for China-related business, said on Friday that it had suspended its activities with the bank. Honestly, having watched this sort of stuff for years my own business interest in China is dead. Yes, it's a big market. But you can live very comfortably serving the rest of the world. Facebook and Google are banned there, they still mint more money than they can spend. Ignoring that market completely seems like a recipe for a much simpler life.

zenlot 7y ago

Why recent articles on HN related to ICE were flagged and this one not? It's political too, double standards?

jackschultz 7y ago

Fun to see the NBA come up on HN. One topic to bring up is how the NBA is targeting India as it's next country to try to bring basketball to [0]. What should happen to comments people might have about the India-Pakistan boarder conflict? Would the people here commenting about how rich people shouldn't be targeting China for money and growth complain about the NBA looking to grow in other markets? They've grown incredibly large in Europe over the past couple decades. Yes for money, but also popularity is fun to have, and amazing stories of players from those places. I suppose my current stance on this, and a stance after only a few days and reading comments and posts from so many people which might change later or after responses to my comment here, is that the NBA should wave its hands and say the other countries can do what they want in terms of not even admitting the Rockets exist, or hide games completely, but reiterate that the players, GMs, and even owners, can say what they want, and that the NBA can and should continue to push the NBA to other markets. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-scli/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-scli/...)

resters 7y ago

I can't believe the way that Trump's anti-China rhetoric is so eagerly supported by so many people. China is just being China, what has changed is that the Trump administration is trying to raise the stakes on its trade war.

kvrk2000s 7y ago

"Band in China"

ausjke 7y ago

money or free-speech, which one will you pick if it's you?

ineedasername 7y ago

This reminds me of the issues faced by people developing apps that compete with facebook, or apps that offer a nice feature for iOS. There's always the risk that an ecosystem you don't control will turn on you, or change the rules of the game. Except with China it's 1000x worse. It's not an app, it's not just an extra feature, it's the wholesale export of their authoritarian society to the rest of the world. When the statements of a user of your system (as with Hearthstone) risks your company being banned in China, self-censorship inevitably ensues. How long will it be until China insists that anyone, anywhere be deplatformed for this sort of thing?

raldi 7y ago

If you really want a revolution, take away the people's favorite televised sports.

tonyaiken 7y ago

Why there are so many political news on HN?

not2b 7y ago

They might as well give up that money now. The conditions on keeping it will only become more draconian with time.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

NicoJuicy 7y ago

Didn't China say they are willing to open their market more. So, I think this proves that nothing changes. I'd be supprised that any TV-channel could show a Winnie the Pooh figure ever again. It's like one big kindergarden, but for >1 billion people.

ilaksh 7y ago

The problem is that the type of moral outrage in this thread is exactly the kind of thing that is necessary to motivate mass killing (otherwise known as war). War is an appropriate conflict resolution approach for ant colonies, but not for people. I hope people here realize that.

malloreon 7y ago

The moment the money becomes more important than the morality, the morality leaves, never to return.

ulkram 7y ago

Just realize that you are most likely using Phones/Computers made in China to call out the NBA.

RenRav 7y ago

The 4 Billion Dollar Tweet. That will surely end up as the title on some future youtube video.

aty268 7y ago

If anyone is curious about what the pro China arguments look like: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls_blitzchung_from_hearthstone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls...

myself248 7y ago

> "We believe any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability do not belong to the category of free speech," CCTV Sports said in a statement. I wonder what "free" does mean to them, then.

tomohawk 7y ago

NBA also invested in a training camp in Xinjiang. https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/ https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/ Meanwhile, millions of Uyghurs are being imprisoned nearby in concentration camps.

rdlecler1 7y ago

The NBA should get up and leave China on principle. I don’t doubt that this would be more than made up for by fans around the world.

lacker 7y ago

Soon you will get kicked out of an NBA game if you wear a shirt that says “Free Hong Kong”.

on_and_off 7y ago

Hey, free speech is also at risk but who cares when there is money involved ?

m0zg 7y ago

This must be especially painful for Kerr who's known for his unhinged, incessant railing against Trump, and who is now quite willingly licking the boots of Xi Jinping, the real, actual dictator. Ready and willing to be woke, but only as long as it's good for business. When there's money at stake, though, murderous dictatorships are totally fine, and nothing to rail against.

asdfgfdsa1 7y ago

For all you kids, do you know what happens in Hongkong? Don't just use "protest", check some video from the other side. Look for Molotov cocktails, punching innocent people, burning stores, ruining public services, threaten policeman's families, does any of these seem OK for you all? If you don't see those stuff, the most easy one is searching for police shooting, how did that shoot happen? What happened right after the shoot? Yes, Molotov cocktail! Those riots are ruining other peoples life. free speech, but don't build it another people's feelings, think about the Clipper's, if NBA don't do it, someone will do it. There's more on basketball than NBA.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Well I have to give it to that old stopped clock Barry Goldwater who in one of his two correct moments said "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice". Oh except for that punching innocent people thing, which is bad. I like how you snuck that one in there.

majia 7y ago

What if Moray says something to support Palestine freedom and human rights? Would NBA support Moray or Israel?

lvwu123 7y ago

Its clearly that Morey using his influence that NBA gave to loudly interrupt others business at PUBLIC. By the way I am Chinese and stay at China. I like Basketball sport very much.

j-c-hewitt 7y ago

If you want to do business in China, you have to comply with Chinese laws including those on speech. If you do not want to comply with those laws, you cannot do business in China. Both are fine and both are legal, but you cannot have it both ways at the same time. You cannot flout the laws in China and continue to do business in China. This should also be reciprocal: Chinese companies should not be able to do business in the United States while flouting the laws of the United States.