I'm offended by his backpedaling. That makes me right, right?
China really needs to get a grip and understand that with seven billion people in the world, not everyone is going to agree with everything it wants.
In China the CPC exercises strict control over what topics are allowed to trend on social media, so what appears to be "mob justice" is actually a carefully curated event. The state media chose to report on this rather than ignore it. The Cyberspace Administration chose to allow this outrage to gain momentum while topics that do not toe the party line are squashed.
You cannot really compare the kind of social media "mob justice" people speak of in the west to how things are managed on the Chinese internet.
The other is an authoritarian government shutting down business ties based on one employee opinion.
How do people not see the difference in this? On twitter, people are to speak whatever they want and can choose to buy whatever they want.
In China. Not so much.
Except, I'm just a one person boycott, since I don't have to agree with what my government tells me.
1.4 billion of those people are Chinese, and they can get outaged over whatever ridiculous shit they want.
Only in your own thoughts and dreams (for now). You're not allowed to outrage on Weibo or WeChat. Is this correct?
Today the Vatican is still a state. The Catholic church remains influential. The USSR has fallen and the Soviet system has been discredited.
The above article would not have been written if the CCP's objections were an effective way to silence western critics. It would not be unreasonable to expect a truly powerful entity to be unconcerned with criticisms from a basketball team's GM.
History will tell all.
In the first Top Gun movie Maverick's (Tom Cruise's) jacket had the flags of Japan and Taiwan. Images from the upcoming sequel show that they're gone:
* https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/tom-cruises-jacket-taiwane...
* https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/tom-cruises-top-gun-jacket-s...
I wonder if they'll be any modifying done for the final release: one set of flags for China print, another set of flags for not-China.
It’s worth a lot of money to them to make a product which sells well in the Chinese market.
Actually, no: companies are pure amoral profit-seekers, and so if the most important market in the world demands these companies fall in line, then they do, freedom and Western values be damned. Womp womp.
Many American C-level execs at many large tech companies are huge pro basketball fans.
So in the end, the thing that rules over you is actually money.
Also consider: you can ask a PRC official what they think, and you'll get a response. Try to do the same thing to a pile of money? Crickets.
In the back of my mind, I also recognize that isolation and division breeds more isolation and division. No NBA in China means less Western and Eastern cultural exchange. China doesn't have that kind of influence in our country, yet our American sport is hugely popular there.
Which is essentially: keep your enemies close and be their friend and milk them for all they're worth while learning their weaknesses then wait until you grow stronger than them and when they're vulnerable, you pounce.
When China tells American business to jump, they ask how high.
He who has the gold makes the rules.
On a related note, this thread went from #6 on the front page to #105 (as of right now) in mere minutes. Maybe the mods, who are quite willing to pop in and tell people off whenever someone mentions astroturfing or censorship, would like to explain how a very recent thread with high upvote and comment count can sink so fast all by itself? It's not like users can downvote threads on HN. Threads mentioning China in a bad light tend to de-rank at astronomical speed, for some mysterious reason...
1- voting got implemented over there only a few years before the handover. It's a relatively new and fluid concept to them.
2- industries/businesses get to vote. These are increasingly owned by China
3- China maintains veto power for any political candidates
If only it were as simple as "just vote"
We have a lot of poverty here so it's very easy to buy votes by just hosting a dinner at a average restaurant, telling the people all the wonderful plans you have for HK then giving them a trinket to help them remember to vote for you.
This is a false narrative originally perpetuated by VJMedia.hk, pro-democracy activists in League of Social Democrat that managed to gain traction on English internet via QZ. The primary sources (FCO40/327 and the Thatcher memo) used to substantiate these claims has nothing to do with democratic reforms but UK seeking HK sovereignty as a self-governing dominion like Singapore (not just democratic reforms) as an alternative to handover because it would stabilize investor fears - the concerns were purely economic. Obviously China would reject this proposal which basically tried to circumvent handover by making HK dejure independent in 1997. The reason why UK/Patten introduced some democratic reforms near handover was a last minute effort to maintain some political and economic influence over the colony. There was never any effort in the 60s to grant HK democracy within the context of Extension of Hong Kong Territory lease - they asked for sovereignty which was never an option - and what little that was given was a last minute geopolitical power play.
"Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong"
Political commentary is not new in the NBA. LeBron was told (indirectly) on Fox News to "Shut up and dribble" as an example. So if China/Hong Kong was an untouchable topic as it now appears to be, why not send out communications to teams that people aren't to comment on it? Does that stop someone from doing so? Not really, but in this particular case he walked it back and the NBA now has to be incredibly defensive. This seems like it could've been avoided so it is an unforced error on their part.
And though it is likely that China helped make the people aware of this event, nationist individuals using blatant propaganda to attack people on Twitter is not a problem unique to China.
The companies and people of the Western world need to stand up to authoritarian China ... or else, in 25 years our kids are all going to be tasting the boot heel of whatever god emperor China has on its throne at that time (probably still Xi).
We are all underestimating how authoritarian China is and how much crime the Politburo members get away with.
I suspect this might just be their Twitter guy who screwed up, and might now be out of a job.
Why not just shut the fuck to and promote sport?
This is how we know some (many?) successful people just got lucky with the birth lottery and generally being in the right places and knowing the right people.
Which is why we’re here having this conversation.
Second, perhaps because most Americans haven't been to China and cannot read Chinese, they can't really appreciate this situation. Hong Kong is a part of China, and they are in the middle of a transition period from British rule. It's inevitable that they will be incorporated into the country, and it's really too late to try to turn that around. They could have tried to stay under British rule, but they gambled on the fact that they expected a very different future for China. The gamble did not pay off, and it is what it is. The rest of China (not just the government) wants them to assimilate, and it will happen. If you live in Hong Kong and you don't like that, really your only reasonable option is to move. It's not a given that the protestors are in the "right" and it's not a given that there is a right side on this. Just misaligned interests.
As if this was a choice for people from Hong Kong
Hong Kong was always going to return to China in 1997 due to a British-China deal. There's no way for HK to NOT return to China.
What does the supposed "inevitability" of anything have to do with what should happen?
Any argument that employs "well just move if you don't like it" is probably wrong.
I agree completely that the angst in HK is caused by outsiders. It has to feel terrible for HK people having their representation grabbed by agents of Beijing. They should apologize and grant universal suffrage to all people born in HK.
Most important in this is HK establishing its own military service, intel service, constitution (not just the Basic law oath of fealty to PRC), and UN representation. These are the remaining things HK needs to be treated like any other nation.
Since the rule of law is what matters, it will be important that judges and lawyers have adequate time to adapt to the any changes in the legal process after transition is complete.
The thing that has yet to be decided is how the legislature in HK will be structured though. Maybe in /r/hongkong they can bring it up.
But most important will be China staying out of meddling in Hong Kong's internal affairs. This is about Hong Kong people planning new system separate from PRC. After that is complete PRC has the same right to establish treaties the same way as Japan, USA, etc.
Which could feasibly be done within the confines of the basic law. It is true many pro-democratic HKers don't want independence.
For some more context for those reading into it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_protests
But I should also be complete and let you know there is a fledgling and growing movement, the so-called "Republic of Cantonia", who believe all Guangdong should be break into its own nation. You can see the flag here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_active_autonomis...
Would highly recommended reading about Taiwan. Taiwan is what China should be but with the amount of manipulation and corruption i don't see it ever happening.
