11 ms·

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 Chi

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
    What would that lesson be? US and American businesses did fine business with the Cuban dictatorship of Batista: "Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (/bəˈtiːstə/;[1] Spanish: [fulˈxensjo βaˈtista i salˈdiβaɾ]; born Rubén Zaldívar;[2] January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and as its U.S.-backed military dictator from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution." I guess the takeaway is: "Do business with friendly dictatorships we helped install, as opposed to independent ones".
    - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
      Exactly!
- tehjoker 7y ago
  It is more accurate to say allied rather than coerced. They use the fascists to stabilize societies on the brink of rejecting them and the fascists use the rich to fund and empower their movements.
  - maeln 7y ago
    Exactly. Ford was a big fan of Hitler and actively helped Franco. Not because he was coerced, he was too clever for that, but because fasciste state keep the working class crushed which is perfect for capitalist like him.
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      This is true... http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/hitlers-american-friends-henry-ford-and-nazism/ http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/hitlers-ameri...
  - monocasa 7y ago
    The rich have historically just been open fascists as well; in a lot of cases they're not distinct colluding entities, but instead one and the same. Henry Ford's personal newspaper wrote at length about the Jewish problem, was the only American mentioned in Mein Kampf (and impressed Hitler so much that the idea of the Volkswagen came from the Model T), and was awarded Nazi Germany's highest civilian award. Prescott Bush (George H W Bush's father, and George W Bush's grandfather) among others attempted a fascist military overthrow of the US government known as The Business Plot. And Walt Disney attended Bund meetings in the US through the 1930s, and was widely known as a Nazi sympathizer.
johnchristopher 7y ago
What if it impacts US citizen's pension funds or other (public?) investing strategies ? It's not like financial assets aren't intermixed.
- davidw 7y ago
  So what if it does? Some things are not worth that additional bump in stock prices.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    $4B isn't a bump in stock prices though, right ? Anyway, I am not crying over the top 1% losing money over that, I am talking about the paycheck to paycheck workers whose means of subsistence depends on their employers doing okay. I am not saying Chinese products shouldn't be boycotted or that China shouldn't be pressured into aligning better with western values but who is going to pay in the end ?
    - davidw 7y ago
      If it's someone's job to dump raw industrial waste in the river, and stricter environmental regulations cause them to lose their job, I'm ok with that. That's why we have unemployment benefits, and why most countries do things like have health care that's separate from employment.
      - johnchristopher 7y ago
        > If it's someone's job to dump raw industrial waste in the river, and stricter environmental regulations cause them to lose their job, I'm ok with that. I am not talking about Chinese workers losing jobs, I am talking about US citizens being collateral damage next month when Random Mother Corpo ® decides to lay off an arbitrary number of workers way down the corporate ladder in order to compensate for the bad previsions for next quarter due to $4B of revenues disappearing from the market. edit: I believe you are intentionally derailing the conversation by moving the goal post (by moving from US citizens concerns to other countries with healthcare and social net and then reframing the problem as an environmental problem).
nugget 7y ago
>Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. Most NBA team owners are already billionaires. I believe most of them are self-made and have signed the giving pledge, meaning they will donate much of their wealth to charities at or before their death. If anyone can afford to take a stand, it would seem to be them.
- tyre 7y ago
  The owner of the Nets is an executive at Alibaba. He will follow the party line and has (calling Hong Kong protestors “separatists”, etc.) The jersey sponsor of the LA Lakers is Wish.com, a company doing drop shipping from China. LeBron James is sponsored by Nike (as are all of the jerseys) and Nike has significant interest in keeping the Chinese market open. LeBron is leading production of Space Jam 2. He won’t jeopardize international acclaim and box office revenue for this. This is the same for every other player. Sponsorship deals with apparel companies are a huge source of income. Few stars are untouchable and the ones who are wont risk other business interests.
  - godot 7y ago
    I know that your point might be "there's too much to give up", but I believe OP's point is why can't these people give them up? Quick google search for NBA stars' pay: https://www.shmoop.com/careers/basketball-player/salary.html https://www.shmoop.com/careers/basketball-player/salary.html At the top you have folks with $30m in salary and $30m in endorsements. Even if they lose all endorsements (and they won't), there's still $30m in salary left. Average stars make $5m/year for 5 years. That's certainly enough money for a lifetime of pretty good living. These are the folks who can afford to take a stand, is what OP means. In contrast, if the average office worker takes a stand and loses their $60k/year job, life would be really difficult for them.
  - paggle 7y ago
    As Michael Jordan didn't say... "Republicans buy sneakers too." Billionaires didn't get to be billionaires by leaving money on the table. We need large scale political action against China.
at-fates-hands 7y ago
China is just flexing its financial muscle to try and tamp down what's going on in Hong Kong. The fact is, US companies does this on a regular basis to get vendors to comply to their crazy demands. Tim Cook was Apple's strongman who basically blackmailed Apple's entire Chinese supply chain to meet insane shipping and quality standards. Amazon has done it with their local delivery contracts with third party vendors. Forcing them to meet unrealistic delivery goals all the while detaching themselves from any responsibility for what happens when their vendors push themselves too much and people start dying. I do agree wholeheartedly about how any company, in the US or abroad should stop targeting China for their growth.
- chance_state 7y ago
  The "blackmailing" you describe is called "business". I don't recall Apple demanding that their Chinese suppliers stay silent about Apple concentration camps or otherwise risk losing the business.
  - at-fates-hands 7y ago
    They didn't have to - the Chinese government did it all by themselves.
- eznoonze 7y ago
  There is a big difference between demanding your supply chain to meet your shipping and quality standards and demanding your supply chain to toe your political and ideological line.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Okay Foreign organizations wishing to do business in US encounter restrictions and conformity that they too would find foreign. Dont criticize Jewish people or Israeli policy if you want to do business in the US. Easy! But a foreign concept to many. In the US its people and private sector will cause most of the headache, and you might find some discretionary import privileges stonewalled by ITC or other gov agencies. Its really not that different just because China has top down control which it arbitrarily flexes on a topic that coincidentally is much more important to you. We believe that publicly made speech in an unofficial capacity should have no consequences from state level actors, surprise. We believe that the speech on this particular issue is the right thing to do, surprise there are consequences and China doesnt want you opining on “sovereignty issues”. If you want to do business there you have to understand that. Now you know why Jackie Chan says pro beijing things. If you’re perceptive and want favor from that very large market thats how you do it. Exiting any market is always an option.
yourbandsucks 7y ago
It's a dilemma in that neither the NBA nor their Chinese fans necessarily want to be dragged into this particular crossfire. Even if you're pro-confrontation over various issues, shared enjoyment of basketball is like the last battlefield I'd choose. I liked Silver's response. Respectfully but firmly refusing to get into regulating the politics of however many players and employees.
chongli 7y ago
Public companies can’t afford to do that. They’ve probably been aware that this can happen for many years. They simply had no choice because their competitors might beat them to market and their shareholders might sue them for shirking their fiduciary duty.
- habitue 7y ago
  So Google pulled out of China, and their shareholders didn't sue them (that I could find. Though even if they did, apparently it didn't cause them to go back into China). The shareholders did sue them to halt their plans for a censored Chinese search engine (which failed, but they tried). Yes, a company has a fiduciary duty to shareholders, but there are lots of ways to fulfill that duty. There's no requirement that they expand into China. Many companies don't and it's fine
  - chongli 7y ago
    The point is that Google entered the Chinese market like everyone else. When they pulled out the writing was on the wall anyway: China was rigging the game in favour of Baidu. This isn’t the case so much for the NBA or Apple. The NBA has no equivalent and Apple has all of their manufacturing in China. Both stand to lose far more money by exiting the Chinese market than Google ever did.
  - swebs 7y ago
    >Though even if they did, apparently it didn't cause them to go back into China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
    - habitue 7y ago
      Right, sorry, so Dragonfly is the thing the shareholders sued to stop. I assumed that was not the result of shareholders suing them to go into china
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > their shareholders might sue them for shirking their fiduciary duty Then be laughed out of court right after filing for having no legal basis.
partiallypro 7y ago
The NBA has an advantage that other companies don't have. Their product can't be knocked off, and their talent level can't be matched by outside leagues. They have so much leverage to just walk away. The NBA is huge in China, fans will be more upset at their government than the NBA.
- DollarGuru 7y ago
  And they'll all protest in silence.
  - partiallypro 7y ago
    That's better than the West kowtowing to China, silence eventually will find its voice.
    - DollarGuru 7y ago
      True. It would also be better to be able to appreciate an entity that isn't so morally bankrupt and profit driven.
- hitsurume 7y ago
  I think you underestimate the nationalist / brain washing of the general public in China. People in China will blindly support the face of their country over something like sports without question.
- paganel 7y ago
  NBA used to be pretty big in Europe too in the early 1990s, especially after the 1992 Olympics and its Dream Team, but I think poor/unhappy TV deals have killed that momentum and now football is all-dominating. Not saying that NBA and basket generally speaking is not important anymore for Europeans, because it is, but there was a slight moment during the timeframe I mentioned when the likes of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird, Sabonis or Toni Kukoc were more famous than many footballers of that time. But in the second part of the '90s something happened and apart from a few exceptions (like LeBron or Kobe) no big NBA names from across the Atlantic have been widely known in here. Which is to say that it's totally possible for the NBA to lose the Chinese market.
gadders 7y ago
They're communists.
- KerrickStaley 7y ago
  It's not really correct to say China is a communist country. Under Deng Xiaoping, China gradually undid the economic structures that define communism and moved to a market-driven economy. Today it is essentially a free market economy with maybe a little more government intervention than most other free market economies. China is communist in name only.
  - bluetwo 7y ago
    "After World War II, the Chinese Communist Party under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, MAO's successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically but political controls remain tight. Since the early 1990s, China has increased its global outreach and participation in international organizations."
    - KerrickStaley 7y ago
      I don't understand how this comment is related to my parent comment.
deeg 7y ago
I generally dislike this solution but could this be countered with a lawsuit? Meaning, could Morey sue the NBA? I know the 1st Amendment doesn't really apply to corporations so it probably doesn't come into play.
ReptileMan 7y ago
>Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. fascist != authoritarian, it also about long term business opportunities. Selling NBA product for decades to come is hardly quick buck. You are mostly right on the rest though - for the spherical cow in vacuum type of corporation that can ignore 1/6 of the world's population. China is big player. Ascending superpowers tend to like flexing muscles and rocking the boat.
csallen 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. This ignores human nature and basic incentives. Of course it's not much of a dilemma for you and me. We aren't the ones who stand to gain or lose hundreds millions of dollars. It shouldn't be shocking that many people with skin in the game feel differently. And I don't think it has much to do with being rich. I suspect plenty of thousandairs would happily kowtow to fascists for a few weeks in return for a six-figure payday.
rasz 7y ago
But how else are US CEOs supposed to get Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star? https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26634 https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26634
- lacampbell 7y ago
  Modern China is like a dystopian alternate history novel where the bad guys won.
ousta 7y ago
maybe they re also doing it because of usa doing it to huawei???
avn2109 7y ago
>> "... kowtowing to fascists ..." "Fascists" is probably not a good description of the Chinese Communist Party, since Fascism is widely regarded as always and everywhere the diametric opposite/enemy of Communism and Communists. Examples of this include [0] and [1] and [2] and [3], which are the results of me googling "is fascism the enemy of communism?" for 5 seconds. Probably you mean "Totalitarians" or "Statists" or "Authoritarian Governments" or something like that. This is pedantic but lots of the discussion downthread seems to hinge on this point of equating "Chinese Communists" with "Fascists," and that's imho a totally false premise. Oftentimes people say things like "Well the Chinese are commies in name only" and similar, and this might be semi-or-mostly true, but it's a bit of a leap from there to calling them fascists. [0] "Mussolini, with his anti-Communist doctrines..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini [1] "In Hitler's mind, communism was a major enemy of Germany ... Hitler claimed that his singular goal was to assist the German government in "fighting Marxism". Marxism, Bolshevism, and communism were interchangeable terms for Hitler..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitle... [2] "Fascism is often considered to be a reaction to communist and socialist uprisings..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism [3] "...in the early 1920s the Nazis were only one of many nationalist and fascist political parties contending for the leadership of Germany's anti-communist movement" also from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  It's difficult to take a look at modern China and call it communist with a straight face.
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    Communism is a utopian ideology from the 19th century. That doesn't mean communists don't exist, and the people who advocate that ideology aren't communists. Of course China isn't a communist society. Nowhere is or ever will be. It's a bit like saying Tom Cruise isn't a real scientologist because Xenu doesn't exist.
goatinaboat 7y ago
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Sun Tzu said that the supreme excellence consists of defeating your enemy without fighting. Guess what, we are ruled from Beijing now.

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
  What would that lesson be? US and American businesses did fine business with the Cuban dictatorship of Batista: "Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (/bəˈtiːstə/;[1] Spanish: [fulˈxensjo βaˈtista i salˈdiβaɾ]; born Rubén Zaldívar;[2] January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and as its U.S.-backed military dictator from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution." I guess the takeaway is: "Do business with friendly dictatorships we helped install, as opposed to independent ones".
  - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    Exactly!
tehjoker 7y ago
It is more accurate to say allied rather than coerced. They use the fascists to stabilize societies on the brink of rejecting them and the fascists use the rich to fund and empower their movements.
- maeln 7y ago
  Exactly. Ford was a big fan of Hitler and actively helped Franco. Not because he was coerced, he was too clever for that, but because fasciste state keep the working class crushed which is perfect for capitalist like him.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    This is true... http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/hitlers-american-friends-henry-ford-and-nazism/ http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/hitlers-ameri...
- monocasa 7y ago
  The rich have historically just been open fascists as well; in a lot of cases they're not distinct colluding entities, but instead one and the same. Henry Ford's personal newspaper wrote at length about the Jewish problem, was the only American mentioned in Mein Kampf (and impressed Hitler so much that the idea of the Volkswagen came from the Model T), and was awarded Nazi Germany's highest civilian award. Prescott Bush (George H W Bush's father, and George W Bush's grandfather) among others attempted a fascist military overthrow of the US government known as The Business Plot. And Walt Disney attended Bund meetings in the US through the 1930s, and was widely known as a Nazi sympathizer.

johnchristopher 7y ago

What if it impacts US citizen's pension funds or other (public?) investing strategies ? It's not like financial assets aren't intermixed.

davidw 7y ago
So what if it does? Some things are not worth that additional bump in stock prices.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  $4B isn't a bump in stock prices though, right ? Anyway, I am not crying over the top 1% losing money over that, I am talking about the paycheck to paycheck workers whose means of subsistence depends on their employers doing okay. I am not saying Chinese products shouldn't be boycotted or that China shouldn't be pressured into aligning better with western values but who is going to pay in the end ?
  - davidw 7y ago
    If it's someone's job to dump raw industrial waste in the river, and stricter environmental regulations cause them to lose their job, I'm ok with that. That's why we have unemployment benefits, and why most countries do things like have health care that's separate from employment.
    - johnchristopher 7y ago
      > If it's someone's job to dump raw industrial waste in the river, and stricter environmental regulations cause them to lose their job, I'm ok with that. I am not talking about Chinese workers losing jobs, I am talking about US citizens being collateral damage next month when Random Mother Corpo ® decides to lay off an arbitrary number of workers way down the corporate ladder in order to compensate for the bad previsions for next quarter due to $4B of revenues disappearing from the market. edit: I believe you are intentionally derailing the conversation by moving the goal post (by moving from US citizens concerns to other countries with healthcare and social net and then reframing the problem as an environmental problem).

nugget 7y ago

>Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. Most NBA team owners are already billionaires. I believe most of them are self-made and have signed the giving pledge, meaning they will donate much of their wealth to charities at or before their death. If anyone can afford to take a stand, it would seem to be them.

tyre 7y ago
The owner of the Nets is an executive at Alibaba. He will follow the party line and has (calling Hong Kong protestors “separatists”, etc.) The jersey sponsor of the LA Lakers is Wish.com, a company doing drop shipping from China. LeBron James is sponsored by Nike (as are all of the jerseys) and Nike has significant interest in keeping the Chinese market open. LeBron is leading production of Space Jam 2. He won’t jeopardize international acclaim and box office revenue for this. This is the same for every other player. Sponsorship deals with apparel companies are a huge source of income. Few stars are untouchable and the ones who are wont risk other business interests.
- godot 7y ago
  I know that your point might be "there's too much to give up", but I believe OP's point is why can't these people give them up? Quick google search for NBA stars' pay: https://www.shmoop.com/careers/basketball-player/salary.html https://www.shmoop.com/careers/basketball-player/salary.html At the top you have folks with $30m in salary and $30m in endorsements. Even if they lose all endorsements (and they won't), there's still $30m in salary left. Average stars make $5m/year for 5 years. That's certainly enough money for a lifetime of pretty good living. These are the folks who can afford to take a stand, is what OP means. In contrast, if the average office worker takes a stand and loses their $60k/year job, life would be really difficult for them.
- paggle 7y ago
  As Michael Jordan didn't say... "Republicans buy sneakers too." Billionaires didn't get to be billionaires by leaving money on the table. We need large scale political action against China.

at-fates-hands 7y ago

China is just flexing its financial muscle to try and tamp down what's going on in Hong Kong. The fact is, US companies does this on a regular basis to get vendors to comply to their crazy demands. Tim Cook was Apple's strongman who basically blackmailed Apple's entire Chinese supply chain to meet insane shipping and quality standards. Amazon has done it with their local delivery contracts with third party vendors. Forcing them to meet unrealistic delivery goals all the while detaching themselves from any responsibility for what happens when their vendors push themselves too much and people start dying. I do agree wholeheartedly about how any company, in the US or abroad should stop targeting China for their growth.

chance_state 7y ago
The "blackmailing" you describe is called "business". I don't recall Apple demanding that their Chinese suppliers stay silent about Apple concentration camps or otherwise risk losing the business.
- at-fates-hands 7y ago
  They didn't have to - the Chinese government did it all by themselves.
eznoonze 7y ago
There is a big difference between demanding your supply chain to meet your shipping and quality standards and demanding your supply chain to toe your political and ideological line.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Okay Foreign organizations wishing to do business in US encounter restrictions and conformity that they too would find foreign. Dont criticize Jewish people or Israeli policy if you want to do business in the US. Easy! But a foreign concept to many. In the US its people and private sector will cause most of the headache, and you might find some discretionary import privileges stonewalled by ITC or other gov agencies. Its really not that different just because China has top down control which it arbitrarily flexes on a topic that coincidentally is much more important to you. We believe that publicly made speech in an unofficial capacity should have no consequences from state level actors, surprise. We believe that the speech on this particular issue is the right thing to do, surprise there are consequences and China doesnt want you opining on “sovereignty issues”. If you want to do business there you have to understand that. Now you know why Jackie Chan says pro beijing things. If you’re perceptive and want favor from that very large market thats how you do it. Exiting any market is always an option.

yourbandsucks 7y ago

It's a dilemma in that neither the NBA nor their Chinese fans necessarily want to be dragged into this particular crossfire. Even if you're pro-confrontation over various issues, shared enjoyment of basketball is like the last battlefield I'd choose. I liked Silver's response. Respectfully but firmly refusing to get into regulating the politics of however many players and employees.

chongli 7y ago

Public companies can’t afford to do that. They’ve probably been aware that this can happen for many years. They simply had no choice because their competitors might beat them to market and their shareholders might sue them for shirking their fiduciary duty.

habitue 7y ago
So Google pulled out of China, and their shareholders didn't sue them (that I could find. Though even if they did, apparently it didn't cause them to go back into China). The shareholders did sue them to halt their plans for a censored Chinese search engine (which failed, but they tried). Yes, a company has a fiduciary duty to shareholders, but there are lots of ways to fulfill that duty. There's no requirement that they expand into China. Many companies don't and it's fine
- chongli 7y ago
  The point is that Google entered the Chinese market like everyone else. When they pulled out the writing was on the wall anyway: China was rigging the game in favour of Baidu. This isn’t the case so much for the NBA or Apple. The NBA has no equivalent and Apple has all of their manufacturing in China. Both stand to lose far more money by exiting the Chinese market than Google ever did.
- swebs 7y ago
  >Though even if they did, apparently it didn't cause them to go back into China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
  - habitue 7y ago
    Right, sorry, so Dragonfly is the thing the shareholders sued to stop. I assumed that was not the result of shareholders suing them to go into china
vonmoltke 7y ago
> their shareholders might sue them for shirking their fiduciary duty Then be laughed out of court right after filing for having no legal basis.

partiallypro 7y ago

The NBA has an advantage that other companies don't have. Their product can't be knocked off, and their talent level can't be matched by outside leagues. They have so much leverage to just walk away. The NBA is huge in China, fans will be more upset at their government than the NBA.

DollarGuru 7y ago
And they'll all protest in silence.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  That's better than the West kowtowing to China, silence eventually will find its voice.
  - DollarGuru 7y ago
    True. It would also be better to be able to appreciate an entity that isn't so morally bankrupt and profit driven.
hitsurume 7y ago
I think you underestimate the nationalist / brain washing of the general public in China. People in China will blindly support the face of their country over something like sports without question.
paganel 7y ago
NBA used to be pretty big in Europe too in the early 1990s, especially after the 1992 Olympics and its Dream Team, but I think poor/unhappy TV deals have killed that momentum and now football is all-dominating. Not saying that NBA and basket generally speaking is not important anymore for Europeans, because it is, but there was a slight moment during the timeframe I mentioned when the likes of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird, Sabonis or Toni Kukoc were more famous than many footballers of that time. But in the second part of the '90s something happened and apart from a few exceptions (like LeBron or Kobe) no big NBA names from across the Atlantic have been widely known in here. Which is to say that it's totally possible for the NBA to lose the Chinese market.

gadders 7y ago

They're communists.

KerrickStaley 7y ago
It's not really correct to say China is a communist country. Under Deng Xiaoping, China gradually undid the economic structures that define communism and moved to a market-driven economy. Today it is essentially a free market economy with maybe a little more government intervention than most other free market economies. China is communist in name only.
- bluetwo 7y ago
  "After World War II, the Chinese Communist Party under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, MAO's successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically but political controls remain tight. Since the early 1990s, China has increased its global outreach and participation in international organizations."
  - KerrickStaley 7y ago
    I don't understand how this comment is related to my parent comment.

deeg 7y ago

I generally dislike this solution but could this be countered with a lawsuit? Meaning, could Morey sue the NBA? I know the 1st Amendment doesn't really apply to corporations so it probably doesn't come into play.

ReptileMan 7y ago

>Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic. fascist != authoritarian, it also about long term business opportunities. Selling NBA product for decades to come is hardly quick buck. You are mostly right on the rest though - for the spherical cow in vacuum type of corporation that can ignore 1/6 of the world's population. China is big player. Ascending superpowers tend to like flexing muscles and rocking the boat.

csallen 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. This ignores human nature and basic incentives. Of course it's not much of a dilemma for you and me. We aren't the ones who stand to gain or lose hundreds millions of dollars. It shouldn't be shocking that many people with skin in the game feel differently. And I don't think it has much to do with being rich. I suspect plenty of thousandairs would happily kowtow to fascists for a few weeks in return for a six-figure payday.

rasz 7y ago

But how else are US CEOs supposed to get Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star? https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26634 https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26634

lacampbell 7y ago
Modern China is like a dystopian alternate history novel where the bad guys won.

ousta 7y ago

maybe they re also doing it because of usa doing it to huawei???

avn2109 7y ago

>> "... kowtowing to fascists ..." "Fascists" is probably not a good description of the Chinese Communist Party, since Fascism is widely regarded as always and everywhere the diametric opposite/enemy of Communism and Communists. Examples of this include [0] and [1] and [2] and [3], which are the results of me googling "is fascism the enemy of communism?" for 5 seconds. Probably you mean "Totalitarians" or "Statists" or "Authoritarian Governments" or something like that. This is pedantic but lots of the discussion downthread seems to hinge on this point of equating "Chinese Communists" with "Fascists," and that's imho a totally false premise. Oftentimes people say things like "Well the Chinese are commies in name only" and similar, and this might be semi-or-mostly true, but it's a bit of a leap from there to calling them fascists. [0] "Mussolini, with his anti-Communist doctrines..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini [1] "In Hitler's mind, communism was a major enemy of Germany ... Hitler claimed that his singular goal was to assist the German government in "fighting Marxism". Marxism, Bolshevism, and communism were interchangeable terms for Hitler..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Adolf_Hitle... [2] "Fascism is often considered to be a reaction to communist and socialist uprisings..." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism [3] "...in the early 1920s the Nazis were only one of many nationalist and fascist political parties contending for the leadership of Germany's anti-communist movement" also from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism

fucking_tragedy 7y ago
It's difficult to take a look at modern China and call it communist with a straight face.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  Communism is a utopian ideology from the 19th century. That doesn't mean communists don't exist, and the people who advocate that ideology aren't communists. Of course China isn't a communist society. Nowhere is or ever will be. It's a bit like saying Tom Cruise isn't a real scientologist because Xenu doesn't exist.

goatinaboat 7y ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Sun Tzu said that the supreme excellence consists of defeating your enemy without fighting. Guess what, we are ruled from Beijing now.