Is Nike the Reason NBA is Kowtowing to the Chinese Government?
Very interesting take from sports journalist Jason Whitlock on why the NBA is kowtowing to the Chinese government:
FOX Sports 1 journalist Jason Whitlock connects the dots on how Nike influences the NBA and the athletic apparel company’s relationship with China.
“I’m going to try to explain this,” Whitlock said Friday on FNC’s ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ “It’s very simple actually. Nike is in control of basketball — the NBA, college basketball, high school. Nike is the real person driving this conversation in this thing with China. If you go back to — and I’m going to connect it to politics — in 2015, in May of 2015, President Barack Obama went to Nike’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon and announced his defense of the TPP – Trans-Pacific Partnership.”“A deal that was going to be very favorable for Nike, for China,” he said. “Who is the President that came after Obama and walked America away from the TPP? Donald Trump. Who is the shoe company that employs LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and these other athletes that smear Donald Trump as racist? Who are the people constantly criticizing Donald Trump? NBA, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich.”
Real Clear Politics
“The NBA answers to Nike,” Whitlock declared. “Nike is a $40 billion business. The NBA is an $8 billion business. President Obama, the basketball President, friendly relationship with the NBA, went to Nike’s headquarters to announce his defense of the TPP.”
“This thing is very simple. This is about money,” he said.
“This is about a President that won’t cooperate with what Nike wants done,” Whitlock said on FNC. “Nike is using the NBA and its leverage over the NBA to go after this guy because they disagree with him about his policies as it relates to trade in China. It’s very simple.”
You can read more at the link.
“The Chinese government under Xi Jinping would rather be feared than loved. They would rather silence international criticism on this topic than try to win over hearts and minds,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a political scientist and associate professor of government at Cornell University.
But when a backlash arose in the United States, with lawmakers, gamers, basketball fans and South Park viewers all suddenly speaking up against China’s ability to censor free speech even across the ocean, Beijing seemed to recalibrate its NBA stance.
“This kind of highly nationalistic emotions are promoted by certain Communist Party and government branches rather than the government as a whole,” said Fang Kecheng, professor of communication and journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“The nature of social media is that content charged with emotions are more likely to be shared,” Fang said. “In the specific context of China, the emotion that is allowed by government authorities is basically nationalistic.”
“What they fear the most is that protesters will go on the street and form a movement,” Fang said. “Nationalism has always been a double-edged sword.”
It’s a classic Chinese government tactic, Chen Weiss said: to whip up nationalism for domestic purposes, then reel it back when it begins to do more harm than good from the authorities’ perspective.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-17/beijings-nba-turnaround-disappoints-chinese-nationalists
A dangerous game. As more Chinese travel and study abroad, it may be even more dangerous.