Political correctness - allowing China to dictate what we (Western nations) do or say.

[Cheesesteak]

@Eonwe

Clear illustration of how we can’t count on businesses, capitalism, or profit motive to ensure the safety, stability, or security of our society.

And “political correctness” has nothing to do with it. Ultimately, the NBA (and Hollywood, and anyone else) is being paid to say or not say certain things. And those organizations have decided that it’s in their own best financial interests to take the money.

I heard a guy on the radio yesterday complaining that the big names in basketball were ignorant or silent on China’s treatment of Muslims.

I said to myself, this is why we have a government. To understand what’s going on in places like China, to rebuke them when necessary, to negotiate with them when necessary. To represent Americans in our relationship with China.

Instead, we expect twentysomething athletes, whose claim to fame is jumping up and down with a leather ball, to be the voice of reason regarding China’s internal politics. Or, we expect the executives, who are tasked with managing someone else’s business and money, to choose throwing some of that money away to make a political point.

Before we vilify the NBA over this, we should acknowledge that we all participate, rather deeply and willingly, in China’s economy. We buy their products, we ship products to them, we happily engage in massive amounts of trade with them. However, we (unlike the NBA) get to benefit from this relationship anonymously, we have the freedom to criticize China and continue to benefit from this business relationship.

Those guys boycotting Blizzard, the fans with the pro HK signs, are they going to stop buying stuff made in China? Or, do they just want someone else to lose millions of dollars by fighting with the Chinese government?

I’ll leave off with this, if you want the Chinese people to enjoy more freedom, the way to get there is to keep an open relationship with Western Culture. The more they benefit financially, the more they see our rights and freedoms, the more likely it becomes that they will demand those rights from their government. You will have to hold your nose from time to time, and fight from time to time, but closing them off does not advance the cause.

[Gyrate]

@Velocity

So I have a question for Dopers with longer memories or better history knowledge: Did the United States (or U.S. businesses, or schools) ever censor themselves in the past when speaking about any other autocratic foreign power? (such as the Reich in the 1930s-1940s or the Soviet Union during the Cold War?) Is it just because China has $$$ to offer and those didn’t?

“Autocratic” is debatable but IIRC America is yet to condemn the Armenian genocide of a century ago for fear of upsetting Turkey. Obama promised he was going to but then spectacularly caved, and to the best of my recollection no one else has even bothered.

[bobot]

@Damuri_Ajashi

To some extent this is the same dynamic we see in academic PC culture and liberal orthodoxy.

And Nazis. And people who sit on corporate boards. And the Republican politicians who fear Trump. And city council members who aren’t the mayor. And workers who fear losing their jobs. Why, it’s rampant!

[Kobal2]

@Damuri_Ajashi

To some extent this is the same dynamic we see in academic PC culture and liberal orthodoxy.

I’m going to regret this but… what in the name of fuck are you talking about, exactly ?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@bobot

And Nazis. And people who sit on corporate boards. And the Republican politicians who fear Trump. And city council members who aren’t the mayor. And workers who fear losing their jobs. Why, it’s rampant!

I agree. Its basically bullying.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Kobal2

I’m going to regret this but… what in the name of fuck are you talking about, exactly ?

Academics are supposed to be insulated from being punished for their ideas and views. That insulation has worn transparently thin lately.

We see fairly nasty attacks by the radical left directed at moderate liberals.

[Chingon]

And the OP succeeds in his mission

[Mijin]

Max, is your post intended to be entirely humorous, or is there meant to be a grain of truth to it? Because if it’s the latter I would like to take a bite…

[BobLibDem]

@Max_S

Just a side point, the people of China love basketball. It’s huge, one of the biggest if not the biggest sport in that country. Europe and Latin America have soccer, the U.S. has tackle football, India has Cricket, and China has ping pong. What? Okay, I guess basketball is second to ping pong in China like baseball is second to football in the States. There’s nothing more American than baseball, and there’s nothing more Chinese than basketball. Don’t think too hard about it or you might disagree with me.

I think if the Chinese love basketball so much and are suddenly deprived of their NBA fix because of their attempt to stifle free speech in the US, maybe they’ll be a little unhappy with their government. Maybe that will be first straw that eventually will break the camel’s back and they’ll revolt and overthrow their oppressors. I don’t think we do the Chinese people any favors by restricting freedom here in order for them to watch basketball.

[Max_S]

@Mijin

Max, is your post intended to be entirely humorous, or is there meant to be a grain of truth to it? Because if it’s the latter I would like to take a bite…

I don’t believe what I wrote. There are more than a few fallacies to point out. If you want to do so, be my guest.

~Max

[Max_S]

@BobLibDem

I think if the Chinese love basketball so much and are suddenly deprived of their NBA fix because of their attempt to stifle free speech in the US, maybe they’ll be a little unhappy with their government. Maybe that will be first straw that eventually will break the camel’s back and they’ll revolt and overthrow their oppressors. I don’t think we do the Chinese people any favors by restricting freedom here in order for them to watch basketball.

You’ve got it all backwards, BobLibDem. The Chinese people love their government, by definition almost. When Daryl Morey implied that Hong Kong protesters fight for freedom, that’s the Chinese equivalent of Lionel Scaloni saying the Bundys fight for freedom. When the NBA commissioner then comes out and defends Morey, you have to realize that the NBA is practically spitting on the Chinese people. They hate him for it.

~Max, attempting to be a satirist

[Mijin]

All right.

@Max_S

What is the point I’m trying to make? Look at it from a utilitarian perspective. Broadcasting the NBA in China will make a lot of Chinese people happy. It also will make the NBA a lot of money, but eh, that probably has absolutely no bearing on the NBA’s decision. Even if it did, the ends justify the means yeah? Okay, now how many people are unhappy because the NBA compromised what we consider to be core values? A couple thousand people, tops.

I don’t think such a simple notion of utilitarianism would be very popular.

If it’s just a numbers game like this then we could make a case for executing scapegoats, or legalizing child porn, say.

So usually, even people who base their morality entirely on utility, will argue it is about kinds of action that provide the greatest utility in the long run. So we just need to point out the ways that a world with freedom of speech would be better overall than one with a public that cannot enjoy free expression, is kept in the dark about numerous issues and/or fed false information on things like safety, health, corruption, conflict, injustice etc. And that is the justification for defending freedom of speech in principle.

That’s bad, because even though we don’t seem to care if Chinese people are guaranteed freedom from Chinese oppression, it’s still important that American people are free from Chinese oppression.

Plenty of people care about Chinese oppression. But China is a superpower and a permanent member of the UN security council. There is little that anyone can really do. There have been some actions though, e.g. recently the visa restrictions following China’s actions in Xinjiang.

The answer is that we aren’t giving up any freedoms by acceding to China’s demands.

A couple recently got thrown out of a basketball game, in the US, for holding up pro-Hong Kong democracy posters.
I’m not normally one for slippery slope arguments, but worldwide freedom of speech has often slid away. Next time it won’t be China bullying the US, it will be some domestic reason that the wrong words need to be suppressed. It is important that we support the principle of freedom of speech (and note I am not saying there are not issues with FoS in US, let alone my native UK, already. Far from it. But we should not accept further backward steps).

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but poverty buys unhappiness.

I think this blanket statement is far too crude for me to accept it as a premise to then base an argument on. The rest of the argument is just using the utilitarian numbers principle that I covered in the start of this post.

[Velocity]

@BobLibDem

I think if the Chinese love basketball so much and are suddenly deprived of their NBA fix because of their attempt to stifle free speech in the US, maybe they’ll be a little unhappy with their government. Maybe that will be first straw that eventually will break the camel’s back and they’ll revolt and overthrow their oppressors. I don’t think we do the Chinese people any favors by restricting freedom here in order for them to watch basketball.

I doubt banning the NBA would get domestic unrest in China anywhere near the critical mass for something to actually happen, but I think you have a point that China arguably needs the NBA more than the NBA needs China. Without the NBA, 200-300 million Chinese fans would suddenly be deprived of watching their favorite sport/teams. Without China, the NBA would still plug on with plenty of revenue and TV viewership in America just like it had during all the decades before it expanded into a Chinese audience.

The NBA still remains highly popular with Japan, South Korea, and other nations, too, so it’s not like they would be losing all their foreign revenue.

[Kobal2]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Academics are supposed to be insulated from being punished for their ideas and views. That insulation has worn transparently thin lately.

We see fairly nasty attacks by the radical left directed at moderate liberals.

OK, I’ll rephrase, and by rephrase I mean repeat exactly what I said but emphasize the salient bit you must have missed : what are you talking about, exactly ? What are those examples ?

[Velocity]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Academics are supposed to be insulated from being punished for their ideas and views. That insulation has worn transparently thin lately.

Damuri Ajashi, I fully agree that many American university academics are being directly or indirectly stifled in their views these days, but this is a China-specific thread. We have already had, and have, other threads elsewhere about the lack of academic freedom in U.S. higher education.

[XT]

@Velocity

I doubt banning the NBA would get domestic unrest in China anywhere near the critical mass for something to actually happen, but I think you have a point that China arguably needs the NBA more than the NBA needs China. Without the NBA, 200-300 million Chinese fans would suddenly be deprived of watching their favorite sport/teams. Without China, the NBA would still plug on with plenty of revenue and TV viewership in America just like it had during all the decades before it expanded into a Chinese audience.

The NBA still remains highly popular with Japan, South Korea, and other nations, too, so it’s not like they would be losing all their foreign revenue.

There wont’ be any unrest from it. The Chinese are great at shifting the blame onto evil foreign forces, so what you’ll see is some unhappy folks and on their social media sites a lot of hate and discontent aimed at the NBA and America, as it’s all our fault.

As for the last bit, what you don’t seem to grasp is that to the NBA, just like to many other US and other non-Chinese companies, it’s a huge new, mainly untapped market. The NBA was looking to do some serious expansion into China with the rise in popularity with the Chinese people for basketball. And that’s in jeopardy, at least in the short term and maybe in the medium or even long term too. The thing is, you have to play ball with the CCP or basically just kiss that market goodbye. It’s easy to SAY you will do that and let your principals guide you…hell, I DO say that all the time…but I’m not the one who is risking billions in future market value and lots of new fans who will watch games, maybe sponsor exhibition matches or whatever basketball teams and leagues do, and by merchandise and such. That’s the barrel that the CCP has all these companies over…it’s the mirage of that vast, untapped Chinese market that is the siren song to companies, and what’s screwed so many of them trying to get into the China market, only to be screwed by their system which is designed to do that purposefully.

But, I again always circle back to the fact that it’s not just greedy companies who get caught in the gears or have to walk softly. Nation states do too. And it’s not just greedy CEO’s and capitalists, it’s western politicians who ALSO dance to the strings of the CCP.

It’s kind of ironic, to me, that the one guy who I hate with the fires of 10,000 suns and who I personally think is a clueless idiot is also the guy who has, at least nominally, actually put the CCPs feet to the fire with this trade war of his. I think he’s doing it for all the wrong reasons, and seriously doesn’t know what he’s doing…but he’s actually managed to put them back on their heels a bit with this and stopped their head longed race to their goals. Once that guy is impeached, I HOPE that there is enough bipartisan support to continue to hammer the CCP and gain real concessions, but, like with the NBA, I also see caving in as the most likely course. Wonder if there will be a thread on that discussing how bad it is for greedy politicians and short sighted government to cave into Chinese pressure…

[HurricaneDitka]

@Bone

This is so disheartening.

I don’t have a problem with a “no political signs at our events” rule, as long as its applied evenly. I can see how adding political disputes to the myriad things fans already get pissed at each other over in the midst of sporting events might be a bad idea. I recall some MLS fans have been having a spat with the league over their desire to use antifa logos / themes in signs, and the league telling them they can’t.

ETA: For that matter, when I’m trying to watch something, I don’t want the guys in front of me waving signs in the air. I’d have no problem with a “no signs at all” rule in places like theaters, concert venues, sporting events, etc.

[kayaker]

@octopus

It does anger me that we kowtow to them though.

You and two other posters used the term “kowtow”. I thought this was a racist derogatory term, and a Chinese-American friend agrees. Just a thought.

[TriPolar]

@kayaker

You and two other posters used the term “kowtow”. I thought this was a racist derogatory term, and a Chinese-American friend agrees. Just a thought.

Can you cite anyone else who thinks this? It’s derived from Chinese. Why would this be racist? Nobody is saying the Chinese were kowtowing here.

[XT]

@TriPolar

Can you cite anyone else who thinks this? It’s derived from Chinese. Why would this be racist? Nobody is saying the Chinese were kowtowing here.

I think it has to do with the Chinese concept of the century of humiliation. The term is derived from a Chinese word, IIRC, which is part of their reverence or respect ceremony towards the emperor and/or the imperial family, but was picked up by westerners and often used in derogatory ways to say Chinese were, uniformly submissive or passive or whatever.

I don’t think it’s a racist term, but it does have some negative connotations, especially today and especially when used by westerners. My sons partner and his family are from China, and this is how they explain it to me anyway when it’s come up.