The NBA bans customers from putting ‘freehongkong’ on customized league jerseys
twitter.com
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Having these examples in their hands or on their screens likely initiates a mild cognitive dissonance: "The CCP news tells me how terrible the USA is, yet, these elements in my life are excellent beyond what is created by my own country." It's reminiscent of Russian defectors who couldn't rationalize the images they were shown of US poverty, illustrated by films from the Great Depression wherein the 1930s streets of New York were clogged with cars. Or, Boris Yeltzen visiting an American grocery store in 1989, and being overwhelmed at the variety of products and full shelves [0].
As the reins of censorship and propaganda tightens in China, there may be less and less of the world to pierce through and belie the narrative they are fed. Perhaps we should not abandon them any sooner than we must.
With that said, if it's a deliberate approach, we need to get the messaging right. The NBA should stick to 'we are ambassadors for the USA to the world' and leave any politics at that.
[0] https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
Their experience does not translate to the remaining 95% who work manual jobs, with highly filtered information coming in, with no real hope or means of ever traveling abroad.
If you are talking about the billions of rural area population, it’s a hard problem and I think they wouldn’t have the spare time to learn or think about democracy values until their lives get better. Their dream is still “get out of my village and find a spot in Tier-3/2/1 city”.
Its a bit “何不食肉糜” (let them eat cake) to Chinese people actually
As a matter of fact, the biggest concern I have is the political climate in the US has done more harm than the CCP can even dream of with any propaganda. Overseas Chineses tell more and more story of how chaotic US is to their family in China and that spreads. Ten years ago it’s a no brainer to send you child to get US education but now many parents are reconsidering.
Can you blame Chinese citizens for preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime, when they have the current disarray of American democracy to compare to?
Frankly I would argue that the Chinese have a much better understanding of the US than the other way around. They study English, they are exposed to Western cultural exports (we're in a thread about the NBA, for instance), heck the general populace looked up to the US for a long time (not anymore)
That's a bit of an unwarranted assumption. Even hinting that you have a different preference or questioning the reports of stability and prosperity (even privately among friends on WeChat, which is monitored and censored) can get you invited for a nice cup of tea with the local police.
Let's ask the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong how they feel about the stability and prosperity of their regime, shall we?
>A strike was intended to open a new arena of resistance, but organizers said only 8,943 union members participated in a city-wide poll, falling short of the 60,000 threshold to go ahead, even as 95% of the votes were in favor. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-ko...
HK protestors have failed to organize any long term strike for a while now. If the majority of HKers strike, that will deal a real blow to the government.
See Chineses self censored.
>The CCP news tells me how terrible the USA is, yet, these elements in my life are excellent beyond what is created by my own country. just not true. I was really shocked about the homeless situation in NA which was never really reported back in China.
and also from u/bpodgursky >the Chinese students with the education and wealth to study abroad are already among the top 5% in China. Not the case for most graduate students. Especially the ones received scholarships (such as me).
Please check your sources guys. Try learn a bit Mandarin if you could or at least talk to Chinese ppl living around you. China is sick yes. But imagine diagnosing the illness of a patient without looking or talking to them but only via a malicious translator.
This is such a tired argument. You've got a tiny percent of the population with the ability to proxy out of China. You cannot easily share the information you find with non-VPN friends. Not even with VPN-enabled friends. Sharing any politically sensitive info under your identity is a big no-no.
I once did an experiment on Weibo and posted screenshots of an article about Xinjiang concentration camps. The original English version stayed up for quite a while. Then posted a google translated Chinese version and it was quickly taken down. After posting it again my account was banned.
That individuals can obtain certain information isn't a big threat to the government if you cannot effectively disseminate it in the general population and organize around it.
do you have data to back your claim up?
>You cannot easily share the information you find with non-VPN friends.
We talk in person, during lunch or on dinner tables, in office. When we talk politics online we invent new words to avoid auto detection. The recent hot topic is this: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/hp8z29/%E7%8E%8B...
basically some guy got detained because he whistleblowed something food safety related. We talk politics, in ways you normally wont imagine. But not the politics you expect.
>Xinjiang concentration camps. That's an interesting topic because most Chinese dont care when you shove it into their throats in one way or another. If you used Weibo, I wonder do you have Chinese friends? Have you asked their opinion about those camps?
> We talk in person, during lunch or on dinner tables, in office. When we talk politics online we invent new words to avoid auto detection. The recent hot topic is this: ... basically some guy got detained because he whistleblowed something food safety related. We talk politics, in ways you normally wont imagine. But not the politics you expect.
Right, so even to discuss local drama that doesn't even involve big politics you still have to use coded language and can get detained for it. That's not exactly an environment that fosters free spread of information.
> That's an interesting topic because most Chinese dont care
And that's the sad part. Chinese citizens are being detained often for years without any due process and people don't care. That's exactly what decades of government propaganda do to people. Not even going to mention the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners which gets somewhat censored even in the Western media too. Most people in China (and the West) are simply unaware of it[1].
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/vpns-can-still-be-used-in-chin...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
Personally I appreciate your insight on this topic, I feel it is difficult to have a good discussion on these sorts of topics with all the misinformation going around.
and I wont call food safety issues local drama. Now that people noticed the air quality is improving[2], food safety is probably the no.1 issue Chinese people care. Especially milk products for babies. Many chinese emigrated for food safety as one of the important reason and most chinese buy foreign milk for their babies. Shoot me email if you'd like to talk more :)
1. China's wealth distribution is really not great. We got tier1 cities like developped countries. then there's tier2, tier3, then east rural areas, and west rural areas.
2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollutuion-beijing/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/beijing-ai...
Just today, or yesterday, a respected prof got fired from Tsinghua for being critical of CCP and Xi in particular.
What is the mechanism for redressing grievances like this in China, exactly?
As someone who has never been to China could you list some things the West is missing?
— An American that spent a few weeks in China.
Chinese people's attitudes toward the one-child policy and also sex-selective abortion are complicated and varied, but they don't seem very similar to Americans' attitudes at all!
In the U.S. it's common for people's religions to completely formally proscribe some forms of birth control and/or abortion. This has led to a big political debate about what the scope of their legal rights to avoid subsidizing these things for other people should be. It's not surprising that that debate should exist, but also not surprising that it would be uncommon in China where (1) the most practiced religions largely don't have these teachings and (2) people don't have a common expectation that the state will give their religious practices and beliefs a considerable amount of deference.
I think a median American attitude is that nobody else should pressure you to have more or fewer children than you want to; if your religion encourages you to have children, other people are also largely supposed to respect that, and in modern times, if you just don't want children, other people are also largely supposed to respect that. (In blue tribe environments having many children is suspicious and in red tribe environments having no children is suspicious, but in both cases people are increasingly effective at pushing back socially against other people's scrutiny about this, and even at pushing back against their own families' judgments or preferences.) (These considerations don't necessarily apply the same way outside of opposite-sex monogamous married couples.)
I don't think these norms are common in the same way in China or in Chinese cultures elsewhere. In particular, I think even if Chinese people don't all think their parents, or governments, should get to decide how many children they have, it doesn't seem like many will reach U.S. levels of offense that prospective childbearing couples' parents, or governments, have an expressed preference and actively try to influence this.
As for quality of care, obviously the facilities in the U.S. are nicer - they better be, you are paying 10x - 100x for that! For the treatment, most friends of mine from China complain the doctors in the U.S. don't do anything; they just give you some advil and send you home. However, antibiotics are probably prescribed too liberally in China, and IV injections used too much.
Of course there are some drawbacks too. First, the flip side of "no surprise bill" is everything is due upfront, so it's not unheard of that critical treatment is delayed because the patient is trying to find money. Second, since healthcare is so cheap, people usually don't carry health insurance other than the government provided one, which has a maximum payout amount per year. As a result, if you get rare / serious condition you can still get ruined financially. Nowadays more and more people begin to purchase commercial health insurance - which are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the U.S. ones.
I wouldn't want to end up in hospital in the US or china. Think the only countries I would feel at ease in are Singapore and Taiwan.
US healthcare is notorious for its problems so I was ready to believe your initial statement. But actually you say:
1. "Nobody goes bankrupt from going to the doctor", but "if you get rare / serious condition you can still get ruined financially". Those two statements are direct contradictions of each other.
2. "you can walk into the hospital and be seen pretty quickly" but also ... "it's not unheard of that critical treatment is delayed because the patient is trying to find money". Again, being seen pretty quickly and not being seen because you're trying to find money are in direct conflict.
Nowadays more and more people begin to purchase commercial health insurance - which are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the U.S. ones
Everything in China is cheaper than in the US. It's still a poor country.
Honestly both systems sound just as bad as each other, or rather, the Chinese system sounds far worse. I'd rather be alive and bankrupt, rather than refused treatment entirely, because I didn't have the cash at the exact moment I fell ill or there was some SNAFU with payment systems.
If more and more people choose to buy health insurance, that sounds like China is well on the way to a US style model as it develops.
The sweet pleasure of being spied upon by the CCP ?
There's literally a WWII scale Holocaust going on in China right now. You have a lot of nerve asking "what's the difference?"
----
On an aside, but related to the broader conversation, the YouTube channel AsianBoss regularly visits China and conducts very revealing interviews with Chinese people on similar topics to those discussed in this thread: https://youtu.be/sTzgE1nvxZs
Public transportation and affordable healthcare are the norm in most highly developed Western democracies such as the UK, France, Sweden, etc.
Basic research in (for example) AI is probably on par with the west, I think it’s fair to say the engineering/applied side is ahead. This is helped by essentially zero concern for privacy = more data. WeChat translate CN-EN is miles ahead of Google. Any kind of large scale tech that has anything to do with surveillance, things like CV, deep-packet inspection, would be unmatched I’d say.
It’s definitely not free of racism.
That's interesting!
At the same time, deepl.com is also miles ahead of Google, so I'm not all that impressed by Google Translate anymore. (Deepl itself is impressive is heck!)
I could see myself reading a whole book through Deepl if I had a reason.
Quite impressive, especially that DeepL (and every other machine translation application) makes use of research done at Google.
- Reliable high-speed railway.
- Night markets -- lots of people socializing in the street into the early hours of the morning, enjoying street food, beer, etc.
- A sense of shared experience that's difficult to find in hyper-individualistic societies.
The Chinese perspective, AFAICT, is that individual liberties are worth trading for prosperity and so-called "economic" liberties. I'm told that this is something that's difficult to understand unless you've experienced the sort of progress that China has observed firsthand.
Ironically, these night markets are disappearing a bit as prosperity goes up. For example, in Shenzhen, a lot more roads were built to accommodate the huge increase in the number of automobiles, and it seems that many of these markets have succumbed to the concrete jungle.
I think that's a false dilemma. The Nordic states have roughly the same personal liberties as the US, but the welfare system means people are much more financially secure.
Btw I'm intentionally trying to stay take a neutral stance on this topic when discussing my understanding of attitudes in China. In fact my personal viewpoint is that economic prosperity without a strong and healthy respect for human rights will have bounded lifetime, but that's a different discussion. Regardless I think it's important to understand all the viewpoints.
It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but it's worth reiterating - safety.
China is one of the safest places in the world. I literally never had a single concern for the physical well-being of my mother, my wife, anyone - no matter what part of the city they were in, or what time of the day.
Worth mentioning that I've found Singapore to be the same.
Contrast that with life in Australia (Melbourne), where I was constantly on edge even in the early evening, I'd worry every time my wife was out late, not to mention the instances where I was physically threatened or assaulted.
Maybe if you're Chinese. Right after college, a friend of mine (white American) worked in a job where he spent time at a factory in China, until he got stabbed in the lunch room by some older worker. He's fine, and while there is may be a degree of safe, it's definitely a question of safe for whom.
I'm mainly talking random street violence, which is far, far rarer than somewhere like Australia. I'm fairly sure that applies to most of "the West", too.
So that leaves anecdotes and personal experience. How many direct experiences of violent crime in both places have you had, and how do you know this generalises?
Not just the CBD though - almost every time I caught the 57 tram, there was some kind of screaming match or altercation (none involving me, thankfully). Visiting St Albans at night, I was treated to roving groups of young men smashing windows and helping themselves to whatever they felt like. Even the train back was really sketchy too.
That's without mentioning the Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe cases, which were really unsettling.
I never worried about any of this stuff in China. There were literally zero occasions where I felt physically unsafe. Whereas Melbourne? Every time I was in the CBD after dark, I felt I needed to be on guard - and I'm a physically capable male.
I know the relations are strained between our countries but I hope they improve. Our government has "do not travel" recommendations in place for China due to the current political issues between our nations but I would love to visit one day.
From my direct experience from a 3 weeks journey 5 years ago:
A super app like WeChat. I'm happy we don't have one because super app == super control. (BTW WhatsApp was still legal back then.)
A ban on gas powered small motorcycles. All of them were electric, some with a retrofitted electric engine, some natively electric. I wish we did the same.
I can't think about other things that were or could look better. In most cases it was the same stuff / processes with a Chinese twist.
1. Food(any objection?)
2. Public transportation: high speed rail road
3. Huge and fancy malls: USA is behind believe it or not
4. E-payment & WeChat: Chinese people think differently.
5. Food delivery and all kinds of half-day delivery
6. Free of Racism: invisible ceiling
7. Cultural recreational activities that you don’t understand
8. Crowded.
But racism... speaking as a rich white guy who was treated as nicely as you'd generally expect, even I could tell it wouldn't be fun to be an ethnic minority there. Chinese ethnic minorities visiting Beijing are themselves something of a tourist attraction; tour guides leading Westerners around point and stare and talk about those minorities sort of the way you'd point and stare and talk about a wild animal you found roaming the streets. Thing is, 95+ percent of China is a single (self-identified) ethnic group so there are just fewer encounters with minorities.
Besides Scandinavian countries where the social security net is amazing comparably, isn't that the same in most of the world? I'm not sure being poor in China is worse than elsewhere?
On a related note, in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China saw fit to have the flag be brought in by 56 children wearing the traditional costumes of the 56 officially-recognized ethnic groups in China. They were all Han.
dumb question: is it possible to tell?
https://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/uyghur.jpg
With Tibetans it's harder to tell for western eyes, but they look a bit more like native Americans do/did:
http://162757811.blogspot.com/2015/06/stop-genocide-tibetan-...
I never understood this line of thinking though - the way you describe it sounds like it was out of pure curiosity rather than racism. It's interesting seeing the difference of how people define racism based on who they are and where they grew up.
For example - racism in Australia can be seen through racial slurs and physical violence from the moment they start interacting with others (preschool) up to adulthood. Or it can come in many subvert forms in the professional workspace. Contrast this to where I hear of racial minorities coming into Asia who for the most part get treated at best above everyone and at worst out of curiosity (e.g. staring)
And "curiosity" doesn't quite explain it. It's curiosity plus lack of respect. Local political bosses are undoubtedly subjects of similar curiosity, but everyone respects (and/or fears) them enough to be courteous.
maybe if you're chinese.
Heh, it is easy to do high speed rail roads if you don't value human life. [0]
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/25/chinese-rail-c...
I've only been to China once (Guanzhou), but it was very hard to find vegetarian food. Everything everywhere seems to have duck or pork in it. The variety is definitely lacking compared to Europe or North America.
I live in one of the major NA cities and I dont feel safe walking outside after dark (after 8pm).
I have a friend got robbed on knifepoint around 11pm this past March. The case hasn't been closed. Numerous friends' homes got broke in and stuff stolen and cases are all cold.
And I was almost hit by a left turning car on a quite street. The car sped away without checking if i'm ok.
Yes I miss getting my privacy striped away by all the CCTV cameras and feeling safe. I miss all the speed cameras and red light cameras. All the cameras that the existence of them having the deterrent effect for thieft and robberies and traffic violations.
I'm aware of the quote: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Because I've been telling that to my friends before I left China and live in NA. But now I think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs more often than that. (https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#:~:text=Maslow'...)
Culturally I'm just used to a higher level of safety I guess. Japan, Singapore, Taiwan other than PRC are like that too. So it's more of an Asian thing.
And that heirarchy actually explain a lot why Chinese seems to be not on the same frequency with westerners on human right issues. Because I guess Chinese are still at a lower level of that hierarchy right now.
In Asian cities, there is plenty of nightlife on the streets. In Europe, places outside the city centre seem to shut down after dinner.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/7x9eaw/murder_rate_...
Are all of them criminals murdered in self defense? I would be surprised. And if that was the case, then some crime was going on.
I'm sorry to break it to you but that feeling is nothing more than a feeling. There is no assurance of safety from CCTV camera coverage. There is only the assurance that the ruling regime is spying on you. Case in point: I personally know of a case where a popular restaurant was robbed at gunpoint in a city area that was extensively covered by a network of CCTV cameras, and still the robbery was never solved.
And the robbery looked like an internal job.
So no, CCTV coverage does not mean safety. If it was, London would be crime-free, and it's one of Europe's capitals with he highest crime rate.
That doesn't take a totalitarian oppressive regime like the one forced into China by China's communist party. In some European cities old cars or diesel-powered cars are banned from city centers, and certain types of bikes are only allowed on some zones.
Democracy and freedom of thought.
Despite your experience of Foreign Chinese Students being confused rather than liberated by the West...in my experience I’ve never met a Foreign Chinese Student that didn’t want to permanently relocate to Canada or the US.
But not everything is material, and creativity and freedom of expression definitely have an impact. I have a reasonably large circle of Chinese acquaintances via my wife, and anecdotally, I've never met a single emigrant who actually returned.
A lot of them definitely complain regularly about how much better China is, but none of them actually pack up and head back. I think that's telling.
But net migration is still negative, meaning there's more people leaving China than returning.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/net-migratio....
I'm not sure how that figure is calculated, but I also wonder if it under-represents "pseudo-migrants" who claim to be living/holidaying temporarily in (say) Australia, but who seem to stay indefinitely.
Is it really "freedom of expression" they want or just the lack of competition and the increase in living space?
Or in other words, better quality of life? Yes, you can drive a new beemer, have a house with a pool and and 3 holidays abroad every year in China too -- if you are the one in a hundred to win the job lottery and work 60 hours a week not to get sacked (or if your daddy is a CCP aristocrat).
In the US/Western Europe/Japan at least half the people can affort that upper-middle class living standard, while only working 40 hours.
It's less competitive pressure because everyone can achieve it.
> Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a 2016 government survey. Those extra hours are often unpaid.
The article also mentions the lack of holiday or workers taking holiday, which the government tried to force happen via legislation[2]:
> Japanese workers are so reluctant to leave their offices that they took less than half their holiday entitlement in 2013. The government now wants to raise that total to 70 per cent by 2020, according to the Yomiuri newspaper.
> At present, employees are entitled to a minimum of 10 days paid leave annually, with the figure increasing one day for every year that they work to a maximum of 20 days a year.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longes...
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/113338...
Isn't that the point the OP is making though? That China is full of western brands that seem to outcompete local brands, yet PRC propaganda keeps claiming the rest of the world is using the wrong economic model.
My point is that whatever it is, it’s not material goods. It’s something more ephemeral. Whether that’s democracy, creativity, or simply a slower pace of life due to not competing with 1 billion other people - who knows.
Source: I am Taiwanese. We get way too many of these people.
Some people don't miss that at all,as their personal views are so neatly aligned with the ruling regime that a) their thoughts are not constrained, thus free, and b) having any other form of government would represent a suboptimal solution dictated by a ignorant majority.
This has been observed in pretty much any totalitarian regime since ever in a fraction of the population that in some cases might be the majority.
You’d be surprised, but no, it doesn’t. And from my experience, older people sometimes just kind of don’t like America, in the same way older Americans don’t like Cuba. Government says their government is bad, don’t really know the people but maybe they’re “brainwashed” unlike us, but the few I’ve met are okay so no reason to really do anything but ignore the country.
Younger people I’ve talked to seem to know a considerable amount about America, and quite a lot of bad. The idea seems to be that companies build things in China because their country can’t and companies like the NBA and so on focus on them because they’re more important now. Which, well, isn’t clearly wrong. If all those American things up and vanished, it’d be a topic for a week and people would stop caring. It’s more normal for products and media to just vanish.
The NBA isn’t an ambassador of anything. It’s a corporate sports team that knows China doesn’t really give a shit about them, but it’s a good chance to get money from what’s likely to be the largest economy in about a decade. That’s all any of these companies are doing, and their road of good intentions is just pumping money into China’s goal of being number 1.
I think it’s entirely fine for the NBA to decide that they want to decide they want to be friendly towards the Chinese market. I also think it’s fine for America to drop the NBA for being the weak, hypocritically “woke” corporation that it is. Either drop politics altogether and be a regular soulless corporation, or actually stand up for what’s right but not only in specific, comfy locations and with safe political statements.
Who said anything about the NBA abandoning China? Their government is free to permit watching it or not.
> The NBA should stick to 'we are ambassadors for the USA to the world' and leave any politics at that.
Silence can also be a political viewpoint. If you don't stand up for what you believe in you may lose it. The NBA has done a balancing act for the Chinese government, and neither moneyed interests nor government politics dictates what will happen next.
I disagree on NBA (sportsmen are not a sign of overall excellence in a country), and Apple (high-end Huawei phones are ridiculously more advanced than apple in hardware terms). USA Education still has a great reputation, and most Musk enterprises are awesome and inspiring.
Source on this? Doesn't seem like it...
- Bigger screen
- More RAM
- 50% bigger battery
- 3 high quality cameras, with night mode and macro zoom (2020 iPhone still can't do macro, and night mode is improvable)
The iPhone still came ahead in overall performance, and the newer iPhones have addressed some of these disadvantages, at the cost of losing features like the fingerprint reader (Mate 20X had it in the back, very comfortable to use). Mate had face unlock, but it was 2D, not the more secure 3D map the iPhone does.
Specs here:
Counter-points
- China doesn't want to sensor innovation, but control it.
- Chinese companies and people have access to the latest innovation in all fields as most of the stuff is assembled there.
- China reverse-engineers these innovations of West and float the market with competition which are many a times subsidized by Communist Party.
- Censorship of individuals does not matter as long as Chinese companies have access to latest innovation which they can reverse engineer.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/china-s-5...
I disagree. The size of the fanbase is surprising, and so is the implication of this behaviour
I think it's healthy to remind people, from time to time, how Hollywod (e.g. Tencent), the NBA, and other American institutions have sold themselves to CCP money.
Americans are used to others having to tiptoe around their sensibilities, and now they're finding out what adhering to a foreign culture's value system is like.
One is about the sensitivities of the people buying, one is about a government forcefully taking over a country and that government stopping you from saying anything about it.
When someone makes statements calling all American racists against non-whites they forget millions of non-white American people they casually toss aside to make their point. In this day and age can we move past that the false premise that all Americans are white?
Always seemed quite the opposite to me, so much so that the most ardent opposition to "American sensibilities" is from inside America itself.
The NBA, together with the stars taking the merchandise contracts need to admit that they have zero problem with racism, genocide, rape, and slavery as long as it's not their own people and as long as they can profit from it. I think the public would respect them more if they did that.
It's a dog eat dog world, and Lebron's gotta eat.
Basketball is a quite popular sport internationally, unlike the 2 other big American inventions: baseball and football.
Only a handful of countries outside the US have professional baseball leagues[1]. And other than Canada I don't know any country that has a professional football (gridiron) league.
Korea has baseball leagues.
Mexico has football, Japan, Brazil, China and Poland.
Quick wiki research:
There have been regular Houston Rockets games that had over 200 million viewers from China. The super bowl has about 100 million in comparison.
At the scale we’re talking about, this will become a recurring issue across many industries as you simply can’t deny the power of the Chinese market.
American Basketball vs. Chinese Hardball: Guess Who Won https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/world/asia/china-nba-cens...
NBA Stars Study Hollywood’s Playbook in China https://www.wsj.com/articles/nba-stars-study-hollywoods-play...
NBA, 'South Park' episodes spotlight Hollywood's China dilemma https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-hollywood/nba-south...
‘South Park’ creators issue mocking ‘apology’ after China reportedly bans sitcom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1KCVj_v0ik
Band in China https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china
It's interesting how China is turning the globalist policies of developed countries into power. The government bans a cartoon character due to memes and suddenly lots of huge companies start censoring themselves out of fear. The US may have freedom of speech but it doesn't matter if China is the bigger market.
Protip: this is the covert part. Who convinced you that's what's happening? Riling up Americans to make a lot of noise about how "China is totally getting one over on us, we swear" makes it realistic and keeps those things in China as sources of American cultural osmosis. If Disney or NBA "took a stand" then they would get the boot just like South Park did once Matt & Trey took the fall (and ton of free publicity) to prove that possibility is real.
For what it's worth I also absolutely see e.g. TikTok as the same concept in a slightly different domain and operating in the other direction. I don't know where I stand on "banning" it in America since the idea does offend my inner libertarian but China already set the precedent there many many times over.
Then with an NBA focused on expanding its international fan base and Yao Ming, popularity grew even more.
How is basketball different from almost any team sport in this regard?
Edit: Japanese comic “slum dunk” has a huge cultural impact to those were born around 90s. NBA starts broadcasting to China around 95, Jordan, Iverson, Kobe became super idol since then. Not to mention Yao Ming. Also China team sports is pretty weak, only volleyball and basketball stands out(China’s soccer team suck, tell that to any Chinese and they will agree lol)
The distribution of American cultural exports is far reaching.
Gangsta rap came to Greece in 1997... [0]
Most countries have rappers now, emulating the style.
If there's a village out there that doesn't buy American cultural products, there is someone whose job it is to sell it to them.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/07/business/houston-rockets-nba-...
Só what? Why should that dictate what letters I can or cannot put o the custom jersey I buy myself and pay with my own money?
Critics are right to hold the NBA’s feet to the fire for this kowtowing behaviour. A lot of people are unaware of the degree to which China is extending its influence into Western countries.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
You can easily buy Winne the Pooh toys, books, and entertainment in China. There’s even a huge Winnie the Pooh ride in Shanghai Disney.
The article was about caricatures and the movie, which both were definitely and verifiably censored and suppressed. (As usual, the bans are unevenly and arbitrarily enforced.)
You talk about toys and books, which are not a problem.
Because the PRC will cut them off if they allow this, and the USA won't if they don't. And, so, serving the interest of capital says “knuckle under to the PRC”.
This is also why Hollywood movie studios do the same thing, and all kinds of other industries.
A neoliberal international order where major players are totalitarian corporatist states is a disaster for liberty, even beyond the ways a neoliberal international order is with all “democratic” capitalist participants.
‘Free Hong Kong’ has no racial or ethnic slurs or any profanity.
I wonder if I can buy a jersey that says “Free Uyghurs”. Where’s the line?
I would argue that while US fans are more profitable in aggregate (first two terms) the reason the NBA sides with China is due to the 3rd term.
Chinese fans are vastly more sensitive to perceived "anti-Chinese" policies, whereas most US fans don't care one way or the other.
Therefor the NBA's position is very predictable. If you want the NBA to care, you have to convince US NBA fans that this political stance is worth not spending money on. Good luck with that because the NBA fans I know, don't care at all.
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/nba...
It seems that they all have moral, entanglements (to borrow Jada Pinkett's parlance), with China that they cannot seem to reconcile.
But they want to lecture us about important cause du jour?
Please! Spare me the self righteousness.
https://heavy.com/news/2020/04/mcdonalds-bans-black-people-c...
Coke Cola used to be pretty pro Nazi back in the 1930s.
https://www.adbranch.com/coca-cola-ads-in-nazi-germany/
Corporations don't care about anything other than keeping the money coming in. So they will support any cause as long as it seems trendy.
Fair enough. But next time either read your own links or get better at obfuscating. Neither of them says what you imply.
> Athletic competition was a Nazi ideal and the Coca-Cola GmbH cashed in heavily on this infatuation by becoming one of the biggest sponsors of sports events, most notably the annual Deutschlandrundfahrt (National Bycicle Championships) and the Soccer Cup.
The second is fine.
Source: Have a friend who bought counterfeit items and got held up at customs for it.
They get seized at worst, you get a reship. Nobody cares about it as long as you aren't getting 50+ for resale.
https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...
https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...
>past violation of customs laws or regulations on your record may make you ineligible for Trusted Traveler programs
Like I stated in a previous comment - our main focus should be pressuring the government and congress where the real change happen. Especially since China would retaliate against any company talking about their issues. Also, focusing on the gov/congress do not in any way prevent the pressuring of companies to do the right thing.
The NBA has had a voice on the matter, they could have stayed quiet like you mentioned, but they chose to side with cruelty.
When their main star, Lebron, publicly called out the critiques on China for their treatment of Hong Kong “misinformed”, it sought to normalize oppression, condoning dictatorship practices and cruelty.
The NBA has a powerful speech platform that should be used responsibly.
There is a huge cost to the NBA if they stand with Hong Kong.
There is also a very small cost to the NBA and or more probably no cost at all if they fully embrace other movements such as BLM.
People upset about this are upset because the NBA (and other sports leagues and media) have become more socially active or political lately but they still refuse to speak up on topics that hurt their bottom line.
What sport isn't going to have athletes using the bully pulpit for their cause, which sometimes is HK?
A common joke response is "wow, we'd better rise up against kids with leukemia."
As for Voltaire, while I'd buy that guy some wine, the lack of meaningful progress on something at least like CFE from RFC 5984 is somewhat of a barrier. My limited understanding is that its still in development rather than anything near production ready.
NBA really want that Chinese market. i find it interesting that Western corporation is willing to abandoned the western values they championed for money or rather i guess Corporation don't give a fuck about anything as long as they make money.
That allows them to promote their ideologies and export "The China Way" to becoming the next World's superpower without changing. Great way to take advantage of the asymmetry to have your cake and eat it too.
Notice how in Top Gun 2, the Taiwanese regalia had been removed.
American elites have no problem censoring American citizens (in America) to appease Chinese elites.
This has been going on for a very long time. What’s different is people are realizing it.
Think about that for a moment. How many friends of you, American citizen, don’t play basketball but like to watch it?
This is why China is more important to NBA than America.
That’ll take care of all the underlying issues.
I guess it would be like if the US was forced to cede Texas back to Mexico because they lost a war. Most Americans, regardless of political party, would hold the opinion that Texas is still American territory, regardless of international opinions on the subject.
Except they had a referendum, which is unimaginable in Hong Kong.
Our elected politicians expend endless breath calling “Wuhan virus” racist but don’t even dare utter a word about an active genocide against Uighur minorities? No problem with the president of one of our largest rival countries effectively becoming a dictator for life?
Let’s all keep calling people xenophobic while Xi consolidates power and swallows HK.
There is no difference between political and economical power. If you accept any Chinese capital, you are dealing with the Party. The Party's decisions are not economical, they are political. They will destroy any company for a political gain. They don't make any decisions that are apolitical.
It's not about selling your products or services to China, it's about following the politics of the party.
There are no Chinese students. You can't leave a communist state just like that. Money don't matter. You have to be a good citizen, you must leave your family behind, you must agree to cooperate with the intelligence and to follow politics of the Party or you will never will be allowed abroad again or something bad will happen to your family.
There is no China, there's just the Party. There are no individuals, there's just the Party.
I don’t want to see our top institutions buckle like this.
This is a real fight, it keeps popping up. These things are worth protecting.
Now, outside the US in places where NBA has not yet saturated your approach makes more sense, but you could also burn a lot of cash for no returns if you're not careful.
Or is speech only meaningful if you added it to your shopping cart and it went through the pipes of commerce? Kind of exactly what people are upset about in the first place?
It’s a shirt. You’re not using the brand. The manufacturer of the shirt is. You have no licence. You own property. You can deface it however you see fit.
You're being a little pointedly obtuse here. People want the world to reflect their values. Very few political vegans would prefer to ignore that there are still restaurants serving meat, they'd rather the culture shift away from that sort of practice. Similarly, people would prefer the sport they enjoy watching not support the government policies they don't support.
"Why not just ignore anything you don't like" isn't how the world works.