OC T OBER 21–28, 2019 | SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 15
the chicken to scare the monkey. This is Beijing saying, ‘Hey,
look at what’ll happen if an employee writes something in
support of Hong Kong.’ ”
But the playbook for market rehabilitation isn’t hard to
follow. As a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman outlined at
a recent news conference: “The NBA has been in cooperation
with China for many years. It knows clearly in its heart what
to say and what to do.”
That begins with apologies and self-censorship. “Certain
companies will go through this gantlet, and the lesson they’ll
learn is to tie themselves closer to what the Communist party
wants and needs, and they’ll see their business improve as
a result of this strategy over the long term,” Stone Fish says.
“It’s fairly craven, but that’s what happens.”
By the time the Nets and the Lakers flew home
after staging a pair of exhibitions in Shanghai and
Shenzhen, though, the public furor had largely
simmered. Chinese state-run media had even
began cutting back on stories about the Morey
incident, fearful that continued attention “could
hurt its image in the sporting world,” according to
a New York Times report. It was a sign that Beijing
was blinking, as well as a reminder that the NBA
held leverage too: China may threaten to restrict
economic access to its 1.4 billion residents, but how
would its estimated 500 million basketball fans
(if state figures are to be believed) stomach, say,
an entire season without being able to see LeBron
James or Steph Curry on television? “Inevitably,
everybody who interacts with China runs into Chinese
sensitivities,” says Scott Kennedy, an expert on Chinese
economics at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. “It’s just that here you’ve got these two behemoths:
one of the world’s largest, fastest growing economies, and one
of the world’s most successful global businesses whose stars
can use their platforms to speak their minds.”
To be clear, the NBA can survive without the $500 million
it reportedly earns from China. Its owners would still
control an $8 billion business without having to worry about
tripping geopolitical land mines placed by “an extremely
thin-skinned” government, as Kennedy puts it. But aside
from Google’s pulling out of the country in 2010, recent
history is all but empty of businesses with the gumption to
cut ties altogether.
With more apologies for offending Chinese fans, more
silence about third-rail issues, more commitment to
inoffensive concepts like friendship through sports, the NBA
is likely to find a middle ground with the Middle Kingdom.
But at what cost? The league has prided itself as progressive
defenders of free speech. Maybe someday it’ll actually put its
money where its mouth claims to be. ±“It was a splendid scene of friendship,” wrote SI’s William
Johnson, who accompanied the party, “with the small,
dignified first lady of China reaching up, up, up to grasp the
hands of the smiling young giants from America.”
That was the sell, anyway. From Ping-Pong Diplomacy to
the 2008 Summer Olympics to its upcoming gig as hosts of
the 2022 Winter Games, China has long used sports to foster
a positive image with non-Communist governments: friendly
competition as a reflection of open-mindedness. It is a smart
tactic, if only because Western pundits tend to be suckers for
the story line that sports can bridge geopolitical divides.
Which brings us to Daryl Morey.
With a seven-word message of support for protestors
in Hong Kong who object to China’s growing
control over the island, the Rockets’ GM wound
up kindling an international firestorm. It didn’t
matter that his tweet of Oct. 4 was swiftly
deleted and the NBA issued an apology for
“deeply offend[ing] many of our friends and fans
in China.” It didn’t even matter that Twitter is
inaccessible in China. Within days more than a
dozen Chinese companies had suspended ties with
the league; Rockets merchandise had vanished
from the country’s major e-commerce sites; and
broadcast magnate Tencent had announced plans
to stop broadcasting Houston games. Even the
Chinese Basketball Association, currently helmed
by Rockets legend Yao Ming, couldn’t sprint away
fast enough, canceling G-League exhibition games
scheduled to take place later this month.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver can extol the possibilities
of “basketball diplomacy” all he wants. But this episode has
proved that the league is simply the latest in a long line of
businesses to find itself paying a high price for tapping into
the world’s second-largest economy ruled by an authoritarian
regime. (Then again, the NBA already ignored morality in
2016 by opening a training center in Xinjiang, the region
where an estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims are being
interned in camps.)
Over a four-day span in August, the CEO of Cathay
Pacific Airways was apparently forced to resign because
some employees participated in the Hong Kong protests,
and fashion designer Donatella Versace penned a mea culpa
after her company released a T-shirt identifying Macao and
Taiwan as independent countries. Gap, Marriott, Delta, Zara
and others had to make public apologies for similar offenses
regarding Chinese territorialism in 2018.
“The main audience for this isn’t even the NBA; it’s future
American companies who want to do business there,” says
Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center
on U.S.–China Relations. “There is a Chinese expression: Kill
“The main
audience for
this isn’t
even the
NBA ,” says
Stone Fish.
“It’s future
American
companies
who want to
do business
[in China].”