Conquer Club

Houston Rockets merchandise was removed from various Nike stores in China amid a free speech uproar sparked by the team’s general manager tweet in which he expressed support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, a Thursday report states.

According to Reuters, managers from five Nike stores in Beijing and Shanghai said Rockets’ sneakers and other clothing items were pulled after they received a directive from senior management that the team’s gear was to be taken off the shelves.

Chinese e-commerce sites such as Alibaba and JD.com have also scrubbed Houston Rockets merchandise from their platforms, according to the report.

In response to the NBA defending Daryl Morey’s freedom of speech, Chinese officials took it away from the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets.
All of the usual media sessions surrounding the Lakers-Nets preseason game in Shanghai on Thursday — including a scheduled news conference from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and postgame news conferences with the teams — were canceled. It was the latest salvo in the rift between the league and China stemming from a since-deleted tweet posted last week by Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets.

“There will be no media availabilities for tonight’s game between the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers,” the NBA said in a statement Thursday, released a few hours before the game.

The game was held as scheduled, with Lakers forward LeBron James and Nets guard Kyrie Irving getting loud ovations when they were introduced as starters. But neither national anthem was played before the game, and no players addressed the crowd before tip-off in a departure from tradition before such international games. Fans arriving at the arena to watch — many of them donning NBA jerseys — were handed small Chinese flags to carry with them inside, and at least one person carried a sign critical of Silver.

mrswdk wrote:Why do foreign brands feel such a need/entitlement to proclaim on China's internal politics? You didn't see Alibaba or Tencent releasing statements on Trump's impeachment.

NomadPatriot wrote:you know now you have to do a facial recognition scan in China in order to access the Internet.. ( so your internet activities get logged onto you Social Credit Score...)

mrswdk wrote:

NomadPatriot wrote:you know now you have to do a facial recognition scan in China in order to access the Internet.. ( so your internet activities get logged onto you Social Credit Score...)

Did you know that in America you have to have ID to get on a plane?? sicko's >:(

tzor wrote:

mrswdk wrote:Why do foreign brands feel such a need/entitlement to proclaim on China's internal politics? You didn't see Alibaba or Tencent releasing statements on Trump's impeachment.

Why does China feel the need to so strongly suppress freedom of speech abroad that it will shut down an entire corporation over a single tweet published abroad?

P.S Daniel Zhang's Twitter feed is fascinating.

mrswdk wrote:Did you know that in America you have to have ID to get on a plane?? sicko's >:(

spurgistan wrote:But the Chinese government isn't censoring things abroad. It's censoring them in China. It's because American companies want access to the Chinese market that they censor themselves.

tzor wrote:

mrswdk wrote:Did you know that in America you have to have ID to get on a plane?? sicko's >:(

Mark your calendars of this HISTORIC date. Tzor agrees with Mrswdk. Yes advanced ID / Passports to fly domestically is SICK.

On the other hand, if so many states weren't giving out driver's licences to every Tom, Dick, and Illegal Alien, this would have never been necessary.

In the "good old days" you used to only need a birth certificate to get to Canada, or even Bermuda.

riskllama wrote:maybe everybody could just start wearing name tags...

Dukasaur wrote:In a place with a reasonable population density, everybody knows everybody

riskllama wrote:maybe everybody could just start wearing name tags...

mrswdk wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:In a place with a reasonable population density, everybody knows everybody

So your ideal planet has about 100 human inhabitants?

2dimes wrote:Why the dickens would you live in Ontario? Saskatoba seems more like what you describe. I don't disagree just wondering. This town used to be so much better at around a quarter of the population.

mrswdk wrote:Why do foreign brands feel such a need/entitlement to proclaim on China's internal politics? You didn't see Alibaba or Tencent releasing statements on Trump's impeachment.

tzor wrote:

spurgistan wrote:But the Chinese government isn't censoring things abroad. It's censoring them in China. It's because American companies want access to the Chinese market that they censor themselves.

Note the subtle use of words here. My point was retaliation for something that was done abroad. Yes that retaliation was done in China, the elimination of broadcast rights, the dropping of product from State Sanctioned Amazon Equivalent (Alibaba). And yes the NBA has literally sold their soul to Communism for a couple of billion dollars. Their sins remain; the blood of China is also on their hands as well. But the fact that China has found a willing rape victim doesn't mitigate the crimes of China in regards to suppressing free speech all over the world. Can you imagine if the US did this? There would be non stop condemnation of the US from every nation in the world, and rightly so. But we can't upset the great Winny the Poo, can we?

spurgistan wrote:State Sanctioned Amazon Equivalent (Alibaba)

mookiemcgee wrote:

mrswdk wrote:Why do foreign brands feel such a need/entitlement to proclaim on China's internal politics? You didn't see Alibaba or Tencent releasing statements on Trump's impeachment.

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba criticizing America's governance.

mrswdk wrote:

mookiemcgee wrote:

mrswdk wrote:Why do foreign brands feel such a need/entitlement to proclaim on China's internal politics? You didn't see Alibaba or Tencent releasing statements on Trump's impeachment.

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba criticizing America's governance.

WHATABOUT

So the NBA whatever-he-is tweeting about how Hong Kong's rioters are right is the same as Jack Ma being very specifically asked for his views on the China-US relationship by a US policy analyst, and giving them? H'okay.