I also studied with several Iranians before their 1979 revolution and I recall them whispering about life in Iran because they feared Iranian spies in the US.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver will face ‘retribution’ for defaming China, state media says Basketball league chief ‘fabricated lies out of nothing … to paint China as unforgiving’ and ‘please American politicians’, CCTV says Commentary comes after Silver said on Thursday that Beijing had asked him to sack Houston Rockets’ Daryl Morey over Hong Kong tweet Chinese state media has warned that NBA commissioner Adam Silver will face “retribution” for defaming China in the latest twist to a dispute that began with a basketball team executive tweeting his support for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. In a commentary on Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV said Silver had “crossed the bottom line” by continuing to defend Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, who posted an image on Twitter on October 4 saying “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong”. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dip...er-adam-silver-will-face-retribution-defaming
When Jeremy Lin went on record saying the NBA doesn 't want him anymore....and then signed with the Beijing Ducks the writing was on the wall....China has their guy now and he's Taiwanese...the new Kanye West rant didn't help either.
Its nothing new, if organizations want to do business in China it's mostly on their terms. They allow our presence because of their quest for intellectual property, that's why many mfg's/corporation have to have a joint venture with them rather than stand alone operations. Over the last 20 years or so if a Corporation wanted a presence in Asia, it was important to be in China. I say we take our ball and go elsewhere.
If I were Silver I would start an Asian NBDL division, place teams in Taiwan, Philippines, India, Japan, and South Korea. Have that division play for the NBDL championship against the top USA based NBDL team.
If the Chinese wanted to play hardball with the NBA the NBA would lose though... China could just fund the Chinese league to the point they could pay way more to players and NBA players would start heading to china, it would really hurt the NBA as talent leaves. I'm not sure the NBA has the funds to stand up to China if they want to really go at it.
Put a $10mill tariff on players leaving the US to play in China and Chinese players coming to play here.
