The New York Times - 08.10.2019

A6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019

the United States, where the pro-
testers are generally seen as bat-
tling a repressive government.
Democratic and Republican poli-
ticians found agreement in calling
the league gutless, accusing it of
prioritizing money over human
rights.
Morey’s original tweet, which
he later apologized for in a two-
part post, was defended by Sena-
tor Ted Cruz, who disagreed with
the league’s decision to back away
from the comments.
Speaking ahead of a preseason
game between the Rockets and
the Toronto Raptors in Japan, the
N.B.A.’s commissioner, Adam Sil-
ver, acknowledged the fallout but
said the league supported
Morey’s right to free expression.
“There is no doubt, the eco-
nomic impact is already clear,” Sil-
ver told Kyodo News. “There have
already been fairly dramatic con-
sequences from that tweet, and I
have read some of the media sug-
gesting that we are not supporting
Daryl Morey, but in fact we have.”
James and the Los Angeles
Lakers play two games in China
this week against the Brooklyn
Nets, a team owned by Joseph
Tsai, the billionaire co-founder of
the Chinese e-commerce giant Al-
ibaba.
Tsai, the first Chinese owner of
an N.B.A. franchise, said in a
statement late Sunday that Hong
Kong was a “third-rail issue” in
China, calling the efforts by pro-
testers a “separatist movement.”
(Most protesters deny they are in-
terested in independence, but the

Chinese state media has at times

depicted them that way.)

Tilman Fertitta, the owner of

the Rockets and Morey’s boss,

publicly rebuked Morey but said

later that the general manager’s

job was not in danger.

The N.B.A. is far from the first

company to find itself forced to

choose sides on geopolitical issues

it never intended to be involved in,

and to ultimately bow to China’s

economic might.

China is an attractive — and

necessary — lure for nearly all

global institutions, with an econ-

omy that while slowing, continues

to grow at a pace that is the envy

of many countries. Any threat to

an ability to do business in China

would have dire financial conse-

quences for many multinational

corporations.

As a result, many companies

have apologized or made conces-

sions after angering China. In

many cases, the companies found

themselves scrambling to re-

spond to comments or Twitter

posts made by executives or other

employees that generate unwant-

ed attention on social networks.

“Obviously corporations and

others perceive that their busi-

ness interests are at risk, so they

are apologizing,” said Shanthi Ka-

lathil, the senior director of the In-

ternational Forum for Democratic

Studies at the National Endow-

ment for Democracy. “But where I

would perceive the risks is at the

level of reputation. These are well-

respected global brands and there

is reputational cost to simply go-

ing along with the party line.”

In an effort to avoid losing ac-

cess to Chinese airspace, Cathay

Pacific, Hong Kong’s flagship air-

line, fired employees who wrote

posts on social media in support of

the protests. In August, Rupert

Hogg, the airline’s chief executive,

resigned.

Nike, which endorses James,

pulled some shoes after a fashion

designer’s support for the Hong

Kong protests sparked a social

media backlash against the brand.

The stakes are particularly high

for the N.B.A. in China.

Tencent Holdings, a Chinese

tech conglomerate, reported that

490 million people watched N.B.A.

programming on its platforms last

year, including 21 million fans who

watched Game 6 of the 2019

N.B.A. finals. By comparison,

Nielsen measured 18.3 million

viewers for the game on the Amer-

ican network ABC.

The league recently announced

a five-year extension of its part-

nership with Tencent to stream its

games in China for a reported $1.

billion.

“This is a massive indicator for

the perceived value and enor-

mous potential of the China mar-

ket,” Mailman, a sports digital

marketing agency, wrote in a re-

cent report.

The N.B.A. has been similarly

successful on Chinese social me-

dia. The league has 41.8 million fol-

lowers on Weibo, a Chinese social

network, compared with 38.6 mil-

lion followers on Facebook and

28.4 million on Twitter.

The involvement of the Rockets

is particularly troublesome for the

N.B.A., given the franchise’s long-

time status as among the most

popular team in China. Yao Ming,

considered the crown jewel of Chi-

nese basketball, played for the

Rockets from 2002 to 2011.

Yao is now the president of the

Chinese Basketball Association,

which suspended its relationship

with the Rockets. It also canceled

two NBA G League games sched-

uled for this month between affili-

ates of the Rockets and the Dallas

Mavericks, said a person with

knowledge of the decision who

spoke on condition of anonymity

because of the sensitivity of the

situation.

Houston was the second-most-

popular team in China last year,

behind the Golden State Warriors,

according to Mailman. The team

had 7.3 million followers on Weibo,

compared with 2.9 million follow-

ers on Twitter.

James Harden, a Rockets guard

and one of the N.B.A.’s biggest

stars, directly apologized to Chi-

nese fans on Monday.

“We apologize. We love China,

we love playing there,” he told re-

porters in Tokyo, where the Rock-

ets were preparing for their pre-

season game.

“We go there once or twice a

year. They show us the most sup-

port and love. We appreciate them

as a fan base, and we love every-

thing they’re about, and we appre-

ciate the support that they give

us,” said Harden, who three years

ago spoke out about the shootings

of two black men by the police.

Echoing China’s worldview, es-

pecially as it relates to its

sovereignty over disputed territo-

ries, is considered a cost of doing

business there, for both entertain-

ers and companies.

Gap was forced to apologize in

2017 after selling a shirt that fea-

tured a map of China that did not

include Taiwan, a self-governing

island off its southern coast. The

Marriott International hotel chain

apologized in January 2018 for

listing Tibet, a region of western

China, and Taiwan as countries in

a customer survey.

In February 2018, the German

automaker Daimler apologized

for using a quotation from the Da-

lai Lama, who is widely viewed as

a Tibetan separatist in China, in a

social media post from its Mer-

cedes-Benz brand.

In March 2018, China de-

manded that international air-

lines refer to Taiwan as part of

China in their online booking sys-

tems, a request mocked by the

White House as “Orwellian non-

sense” but eventually obeyed by

all major carriers.

Movie studios frequently find

themselves at odds with state cen-

sors in a country where notions of

free expression do not apply but

billions of dollars ride on interna-

tional success.

Disney, which has been more

successful at navigating these wa-

ters than any other American en-

tertainment company, is now in

the position of promoting the live-

action adaptation of “Mulan” after

Crystal Yifei Liu, its Chinese-

American star, prompted dueling

backlash in the United States and

China by supporting a crackdown

on protesters in Hong Kong.

Disney, which had no comment,

has inched forward in its posi-

tioning in China for decades, lead-

ing to the opening of Shanghai

Disneyland in 2016 and spectacu-

lar results for films like the recent

“Avengers: Endgame,” which

took in $858 million in the United

States and $614 million in China

earlier this year. Last year, Chi-

nese moviegoers bought an esti-

mated $8.87 billion in movie tick-

ets, up 9 percent from a year earli-

er, according to box office ana-

lysts.

Beijing’s Power to Exert Influence Over Speech Extends Even to the N.B.A.

An N.B.A. preseason game in 2016 in Shanghai. Two more pre-

season games are scheduled to be played this week in China.

VISUAL CHINA GROUP, VIA GETTY IMAGES

Reporting was contributed by
Claire Fu, Sopan Deb, Julie
Creswell and Brooks Barnes.

TOP CONCERN: THE BOTTOM LINE

The N.B.A.’s progressive attitudes

took a back seat to its finances,

Michael Powell writes. Page B8.

From Page A

HONG KONG — When pro-
testers in Hong Kong this week-
end came upon an older, shirtless
man who was threatening a
crowd, they pounded him to the
ground with a stick. When a taxi
swerved into a group of protesters
nearby, some dragged the driver
out and beat him until he was cov-
ered in blood.
And a few blocks away, pro-
testers punched a Hong Kong ac-
tress who has publicly supported
the police — apparently because
she had been taking photos of pro-
testers who were vandalizing a
bank.
“Go back to the mainland!” the
protesters yelled as she left the
scene.
Those in a confrontational core
of Hong Kong’s antigovernment
protesters have acted with great-
er ferocity in recent weeks, attack-
ing individuals and smashing and

torching storefronts, banks, cafes
and subway entrances. In a strik-
ingly personal affront, one group
even delivered a severed pig’s
head to a police officer’s wedding
banquet.
For months, the protests, which
began out of anger toward a pro-
posed extradition law but broad-
ened to encompass a variety of de-
mands, have been largely peace-
ful, but violence now regularly
overshadows events.
The hard-line protesters see
themselves as being forced to
mete out justice in a system that
lacks accountability and in the
face of a government they deem
unresponsive. Much of the vio-
lence has been fueled by anger
over police conduct, made worse
after an officer shot a teenage pro-
tester in the chest with a live
round during clashes on Oct. 1, the
politically sensitive anniversary
of the founding of the People’s Re-
public of China.
But to their critics, these pro-
testers are crossing the line by
playing the role of vigilantes to
punish those they consider their
foes. The intensity of the unrest
could alienate moderate support-
ers and members of the public and
play to Beijing’s depictions of the
movement as the work of riotous
mobs.
“Some people began to take
matters into their own hands,”
said Ma Ngok, an associate pro-
fessor of government at the Chi-
nese University of Hong Kong. He
pointed in part to the protesters’
frustration that the police have in
large part failed to arrest and
prosecute pro-government thugs
who attacked demonstrators.
Yet, he added, in recent days,
the movement has been debating
whether such retributive violence
is morally justifiable.
The protesters describe vigi-
lante attacks as “settling matters
privately,” or “si liu” in Cantonese.
On internet forums where rallies
and gatherings are organized,
some posts calling on the pro-

testers to return punches have

gained traction on the ground.

In their effort to retaliate

against perceived injustices,

hard-line protesters see few ac-

tions that are off limits.

A group of them showed up last

month at a hall where an off-duty

police officer was holding a wed-

ding banquet and delivered a sev-

ered pig’s head. They also set off

an ear-piercing fire alarm and

tossed fake money at guests, turn-

ing a Chinese funeral custom into

a deep insult.

One of the protesters who was

there, Edward Hui, 20, said in an

interview that the harassment

was justified because the police

were getting away with what the

protesters saw as excessive bru-

tality.

“This sends a message to the

police that, even if they are not

held accountable by the system,

they will be punished in their daily

lives, and their loved ones too,” he

said.

The decision by Hong Kong’s

leader, Carrie Lam, on Friday to

invoke emergency powers to ban

the use of face masks at protests

has only further angered the pro-

testers, who see it as the latest ex-

ample of eroding freedoms in the

semiautonomous territory. Many

who attended rallies on Sunday

wore masks in defiance of the ban.

In the Mong Kok neighborhood

on Sunday night, two men in

masks who looked to be in their

20s or 30s punched a shirtless,

older man who was standing in

the street and arguing with a

crowd.

The man tried to walk away af-

ter being hit at least three times —

in the face, neck and jaw. But an-

other masked attacker struck him

on the back of the head with a

stick, knocking him to the ground,

and hit the man again.

In another confrontation, video

footage circulating online showed

a group of protesters pulling a taxi

driver out of his car and beating

him bloody after his vehicle had

accelerated with a sharp swerve

into a crowd.

Some protesters formed a circle

around the driver in an apparent

effort to protect him, but by then

he was already bleeding profusely

from his head. At least one pro-

tester was reportedly injured by

the swerving car.

“Rioters blatantly launched

brutal attacks on ordinary citizens

yesterday,” the police said in a

statement on Monday, referring to

the beating of the taxi driver and

other confrontations that day.

“Such acts of violence by far over-

step the moral boundaries of any

civilized society.”

The protesters have also begun

setting more and more street

blazes, which send plumes of

black smoke swirling through

Hong Kong’s urban canyons. Bon-

fires at the entrances to subway

stations have been set to show an-

ger at the transportation net-

work’s perceived support for the

government. The fires have added

a sharp edge to a slogan from the

“Hunger Games” movies — “If we

burn, you burn with us” — that the

movement appropriated months

ago as a challenge to the city’s po-

litical elite.

Many protesters and organ-

izers have avoided overtly criticiz-

ing violence on the part of the

demonstrators, asserting that any

fracture in their unified position

weakens their influence. But there

were signs that more demonstra-

tors were concerned that the esca-

lation in violent tactics, even if jus-

tified to many, would undermine

the movement.

On Sunday, a post on the Reddit-

like forum LIHKG, used by pro-

testers, urged demonstrators to

resist the incitement to violence.

The post, which was upvoted over

1,800 times, asserted a theory that

internet commentators paid by

the Chinese government could be

pushing protesters to adopt ex-

treme tactics to try to sow divi-

sions within the movement and

erode public support for it.

Another popular post in the

early hours of Monday suggested

that the protesters should dial

down the use of violent tactics and

stop their acts of vandalism. That

post was also heavily endorsed.

But there are signs the public

might be growing more tolerant of

violence.

The Chinese University of Hong

Kong conducted a survey of more

than 600 people that found that the

proportion of people who believed

that protesters should uphold the

principle of nonviolence had fallen

to 70 percent in early September

from 83 percent the month before.

More than half of the respondents

said that they could understand

the use of extreme tactics by pro-

testers when the government was

seen as having failed to respond to

public demands.

Wong Siu-fan, a 25-year-old lo-

gistics worker who has partici-

pated in several peaceful protests,

said he believed the hard-line pro-

testers were usually justified in

turning to violence, but he was

worried about its escalating fre-

quency.

“It could make a lot of people

feel that the protesters’ goal is no

longer to resist the government,

but to vent,” he said. “I’m not opti-

mistic, because the government is

pushing protesters to extremes,

and then afterwards using their

actions to stigmatize them.”

Hong Kong’s Hard-Core Protesters Take Justice Into Their Own Hands

Demonstrators attacking a man in the Mong Kok section of Hong

Kong on Sunday, above, and riot police officers clashing with pro-

testers in the Wong Tai Sim area last week, left.

ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

This article is by Elaine Yu,
Tiffany Mayand Mike Ives.

LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Adam Dean contributed reporting.

Violence driven by a

breakdown in trust in

the authorities.