[From GARM with love] China v. GM Daryl Morey’s personal views

The human rights issue is tied to your system of government and it's increasing use of surveillance to exert absolute control of it's people.

I prefer freedom and the pains that come along with that as it's the superior way.

Goldman Sachs isn't tied to the US government, it's a multinational investment bank. The Greeks wanted to hide their debt and not pay their taxes, that's a terrible combination.

The US financial system is so powerful it has it's own autonomy.

That fact that you are censured says a lot about how your worldviews are formed. They show you what they want you to see.

It's understandable that Xi is pretty insecure. Both the current Chinese and US top leaders are extremely insecure. Like I said, they show you what they want you to see.

 

Exploitation is exploitation and the USA, China, Russia and GB all do it. We can talk about it being mutually beneficial but largely it isn’t the case.

The problem is the the Belt and Road isn’t working as well as hoped. The quality of work on the infrastructure is poor and the costs extorted from Africa have been very high. Within Africa it is very split. Some Africans are grateful for capital investment but other Africans view it as being more exploitative than the West because China insists on having control of the infrastructure and there are legitimate concerns with control of the infrastructure China will dictate trade partners and terms to the detriment of Africa. Personally I doubt that is true because although the West over the last 20 years has put Africa on the back burner, the USA and EU still have a massive amount of investment.

I don’t think that the need to develop alternate trade partners is necessary in a free economic system. However if China believes we are headed to a Cold War then I can see why they pursue Africa. The USA and EU control so much of the development and Africa was basically what was left. I have serious doubts that Africa will be a strong economic ally for China based on history and serious population control issues.

It is an interesting debate for sure and time will tell what happens. I am just very skeptical based on history, when ANY nation steps in to “help”, that includes the USA and China.

 

While I do agree that the government is seeking for more control of people and not all of the actions are well justified, there are also times that abuses of certain human rights are compromises of other human rights.

That may not be an appropriate analogy to what China does. The point is that these big (especially, financial) corporations sometimes do have significant impact on other countries' economics. Meanwhile, they also have influence in the US's local politics and can shape the government's foreign policies in their own interests.

I am not saying I completely agree with the increasing level of censorship in China in recent years. There are also many other issues in China as well. The point here is that both people within and outside China receive information from the Internet that is somewhat filtered. The difference is that in China it is the government that uses its power to censor information. In contrast, in the Western countries, different media filter information based on their own financial and political interests. While these media may have very different opinions on domestic topics, many (but not all) of them share similar views on issues related to China -- therefore the diversity of options is still limited.

 

I don't understand what you're communicating. Are you saying all the news media that you have consumed during your time in the US is a monolithic collection of capitalist propaganda promoting fascism? I guess we just have to agree to disagree there. They all pay bills to different advertisers, but they also disclose when a story involves an owner company or something. Other than this bbs, the last Sino related news I've consumed is the Daily podcast episode titled "Pageantry in Beijing. Firebombs in Hong Kong," where a reporter discusses how the government took his apartment during this delicate time, but it also discussed the property destruction by the protesters. It seems to be an in-depth look into all the complicated matter, but maybe you disagree. Anyhow, maybe we're just two boats passing in the night arguing different things. I think the US, for better or for worse, has more diversified views from within the government and from the public at large. We're a weird country with a weird government and lots of freedom to disagree and dissent and there are people who believe/preach the weirdest things.

 

^Yeah, dude is not trying with his news sources. Democracy Now!, Intercept, Mother Jones are pretty hard left and try to get most of their funding from donations. Pro Publica does solid work that large institutions would rather prefer not report.

I guess the point is that MSM has a corporate bias? It was funny when MSNBC and Fox News got real nasty and Fox started sniping GE's shady dealings, NBC's parent company at the time.

Yes, they are lacking in the sense that they're driven by ratings and their editors are not always the final word on content. A high percentage media conglomerates are creepily family driven and have a tight grip on ownership despite owning a minority percentage of shares. It definitely can be highlighted as a threat to a free press, and has been discussed as such. Another farce is what the WH Correspondence Dinner has become...

But guess what, people have a choice what they want to consume (whether it's Infowars or some hard Socialist site) and most importantly, reporters don't disappear because it talks against the party. As much as presidents from both sides have threatened to goto war against one outlet, those outlets survive and peddle at least 90% of the themes they directed before.

You don't see that in China. Winnie the Pooh...really? Heck, I wouldn't mind Alex Jones getting cattle prodded into mouth drooling sanity, but I'd be just one of many among an invisible mob.

The level of responsibility and contextual thinking is a magnitude or two higher than say, blindly assuming the state sponsored media will digest all the worldly events of the day and regurgitate it up into your throats like a good responsible mama bird would do.

That's called the Local News in the US, and I guess a state of ignorance is fine for people doing everything to put food on the table and pay the bills.

It's just harder to give healthy credibility to those outraged by the vomit they've been fed.

 

Yea only time will tell I guess.

 

LONDON—China’s main state broadcaster, CCTV, abruptly pulled an English Premier League game involving Arsenal from its airwaves on Sunday, putting Beijing in conflict with a second major global sports league.

Arsenal played defending champion Manchester City in the marquee matchup of the weekend, two days after club star Mesut Özil criticized China’s internment of ethnic-minority Muslims. Instead, CCTV chose to air a tape-delayed broadcast of Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Arsenal game also appeared to have been pulled from the other two ways that Chinese viewers could watch the match—the online streaming services PPTV Sports and Migu Sports. Arsenal declined to comment.

The blocking of the Arsenal match from Chinese airwaves follows a similar reaction to an October tweet by Daryl Morey, general manager of the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets, who expressed support for antigovernment protesters in Hong Kong. Though the tweet was quickly deleted, Rockets games remain blacked out in China two months later.

....

An official of the Chinese Football Association was quoted in domestic media criticizing Özil for encouraging separatism and terrorism, and for hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.

Chinese fans quickly took to Weibo to express their disappointment with Özil—and with Chinese platforms’ decision not to broadcast the match against Manchester City.

“Is this how collateral damage works in this new era? It is enough to boycott Özil, but why can’t we watch all the games now?” wrote a user.

Another was outraged at not being able to watch a game that had already been paid for.

“CCTV was doing the right thing by canceling, but for a paid platform like PPTV to not adhere to its contract? I bought a season pass. Doesn’t that mean I get to watch all the matches?”

Others were more strident in their support for CCTV’s decision to pull the match from the airwaves. Özil’s original posts Friday prompted a furor in China, and some fans reacted by posting photos of their Arsenal team shirts slashed apart and dumped in trash bins.

“As a fan, I support CCTV. Ozil supports East Turkestan and believes in rumors,” wrote a user. Another framed the debate around Özil’s remarks as “an ideological dispute, a struggle for justice and sovereignty in China.” “We must ensure that opponents have no room for survival on a business level,” the user wrote.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-...ms-beijings-repression-of-uighurs-11576421803

 

If you don't stand with Morey
you stand with LeBron

 

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...r-joe-tsai-face-nba-uneasy-china-relationship

In 2019, a pro-democracy tweet by then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey exposed the political land mines faced by the league as it navigates the tension between value and values.

The NBA still hasn't recovered from Morey's now-infamous tweet -- an image that read: "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong." Banned from state TV for most of three seasons and shunned by some sponsors, the league operates under sanctions that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars and "years of goodwill," an American coach who spent years in China told ESPN.

Within two months of taking control of the Nets, Tsai inserted himself into the controversy. Morey's supporters believed Tsai was pushing the NBA to fire Morey and offer a full-throated apology, part of a behind-the-scenes drama that reached the White House and has not been previously disclosed. Tsai also published an open letter that accused Morey, inaccurately, of "supporting a separatist movement."

Both the Nets and the NBA denied that Tsai tried to get Morey fired or that he pushed the NBA to apologize.

Later, after Morey saved his job with help from powerful supporters who championed his right to free speech, the Nets quietly refunded Morey's purchase of a suite for a Rockets game at Barclays Center. Morey believed Tsai had disinvited him, according to a person who was scheduled to attend. A source close to the Nets said Tsai was unaware of the decision, which was related to concerns about possible protests.

Morey declined comment for this story.

[…]

Two months after Tsai became sole owner of the Nets, Morey sent his tweet.

A former data analyst at MITRE, the federally funded research and development corporation, Morey had friends involved in the Hong Kong protests, the latest of which had followed a Chinese prohibition on masks to prevent protestors from shielding their identities.

Tsai was preparing to leave for China to attend exhibition games there when Morey tweeted. He was soon contacted by deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, who told him the tweet had provoked significant anger in China. Tsai thought he could play the "middle man," a source close to him said. He drafted a letter and sent it to Tatum, who oversees international operations. Tsai received no response and posted it on Facebook from his private plane.

Tsai described the message as an "open letter to all NBA fans." He invoked Chinese history to explain why "the Daryl Morey tweet is so damaging" and vowed to "help the League to move on from this incident." He indicated that Morey had supported a separatist movement, a bitter point of contention for Morey and his supporters, who saw the protests as a fight for democracy.

As the issue raged on social media in both countries, senior NBA officials braced for China's response. Silver was in Japan, about to travel to Shanghai; some worried the commissioner might be detained or that the government would shut down the games before tipoff. "We had contingencies for everything," said a former senior NBA executive in Asia who asked to remain anonymous because the conversations were confidential.

The NBA, in its first statement, acknowledged that Morey's tweet had "deeply offended" fans in China and called that "regrettable." The league also noted its support for individuals "sharing their views."

Even before the controversy, the NBA had begun to consider contingencies in the event a player spoke out about human rights. Inside the Hong Kong office, the tense political climate was creating divisions, and NBA officials worried about safety. The league studied how other foreign companies had saved their businesses by issuing apologies for offending China.

"It was, 'These are some examples of what other companies have been doing,'" one NBA source familiar with the debate told ESPN. "I don't think it ever got to the point where it was, 'This is going to be our position.'"

Suddenly it was reality. To many NBA officials and league executives, the response was obvious: The league would have to fire Morey and issue a public apology.

Morey heard directly from at least one NBA owner that Tsai was pushing to fire him to appease the Chinese. Turpin volunteered to help Morey and quickly became convinced that the Rockets' general manager was fighting not only the Chinese government but also Tsai.

"My impression of Joe Tsai's role in this was that it was extremely unhelpful," Turpin said. "He was laying out to the other owners how completely unacceptable it was that anyone weigh in on Hong Kong. It colored the way the rest of the league lined up against Daryl."

The Nets strongly denied that Tsai intervened.

"Joe Tsai did not speak to any owners about Mr. Morey after the tweet and it's absolutely false that he advocated for anything to happen to Morey," Mandy Gutmann, a Nets spokesperson, wrote in an email. "Only the Rockets make personnel decisions about their team."

Mike Bass, the NBA's chief communications officer and executive vice president, said Tsai "never asked or intimated to the league office that Daryl Morey should be fired or that we should apologize."

Regardless, the NBA's stated principles were butting up against the realities of doing business in China. "I think the NBA was caught with its feet in two boats, and both were separating," Fenton said.

In Shanghai, Tsai worried the government would cancel the games, the source close to him said. He asked his Alibaba co-founder, Jack Ma, to contact city officials to let the exhibitions continue. Ma was successful. Meanwhile, LeBron James, whose new movie "Space Jam: A New Legacy," was in production, raged to players about Morey during a meeting in China at a Ritz-Carlton, according to a source familiar with the meeting. (After returning to the U.S., James said Morey was "misinformed" in his opinion about Hong Kong.)

With the Rockets pushing for an apology and powerful figures like Tsai and James aligned against him, Morey scrambled to save his career. He deleted the tweet soon after it was posted and later tweeted, "I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. ... My tweets are my own and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA."

Morey spoke with current and former White House officials, a Democratic governor and others who rallied around him. Turpin worked Congress and the White House to push back.

"I wanted to make it clear to the NBA that there was a broader aspect and costs to the U.S. to being seen as caving in," Turpin said.

Pottinger, then deputy national security adviser specializing in China, said the White House "knew we had to put a marker down somehow. I remember many of us at the White House saying this is really bad precedent. We don't want American businesses abandoning values in order to abide by Chinese censorship."

Pottinger said he spoke directly with then-Vice President Mike Pence, who later addressed the controversy in a speech, saying: "The NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of that authoritarian regime."

Republicans and Democrats in Congress rallied behind Morey and railed against the NBA. Silver then issued a statement, acknowledging the league's first comments "left people angered, confused or unclear" and affirmed the NBA's commitment to free expression. The next day, a bipartisan letter signed by, among others, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, said it was "outrageous that the NBA has caved to Chinese government demands for contrition.

Morey, who believed he'd be forced to resign, stayed with the Rockets for another year before joining the Sixers.

In a recent statement provided to ESPN, Silver said, "We have always supported and will continue to support every member of the NBA family, including Daryl Morey and Enes Freedom, expressing their personal views on social and political issues."

The NBA declined to make Silver available for an interview.

 

Old Lebron "China" James at the top of the D&D