The NBA's Chinagate

Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted support for the protestors in Hong Kong.  This set off a series of retaliatory actions from China which threatened to undermine the NBA’s relationship with China.  This also jeopardized a great deal of money as the NBA is very popular in China.  Morey offended the Chinese by his tweet.  This whole episode underlines the problem we have when dealing with China.  In short, our problem when we deal with China is we are not strong enough about our values.

There is something to be said for behaving while a guest in someone’s house.  So I can understand if the NBA and its players said nothing politically while in China.  In other words, I’m willing to leave it up to the NBA to decide whether they keep silent or not.  Having said this, let’s imagine the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and let’s pretend the athletes attending knew what the Nazis were doing to the Jews (note the concentration camps were not instituted yet but persecution was definitely taking place).  Would we feel comfortable to remain silent?  I raise this only to illustrate that it is not always easy to determine whether to stand up for your beliefs, or behave as a guest in someone’s house.

Morey tweeted while in the United States.  There is something we need to make extremely clear to China.  In our house, we say what we want, when we want, and how we want.  If that offends you, shove it.  In China, you are not allowed to have your own opinion.  You must agree with the dickhead dictator running the place or else.  Their government monitors people and punishes descent.  That is what despotic dictators do and have always done.    Anyone who says anything the dictator does not like offends.  So china expects us to be careful what we say in our own country.  Not happening. 

I’m not going to argue here that freedom and democracy are better than Chinese Communism.  I’ll save that for another time.  What I will argue is this.  It is about time we stopped worrying about offending China with what we say or do in our own house.  In the USA people are allowed to have different opinions than the ruling government.  We are allowed to express those opinions without fear of punishment.  And by and large, this ideal is upheld.  That is our way of life.  It offends us when someone tells us to shut up in our own house. 

The Chinese were offended by Morey’s tweet because they are not used to our way of life and our freedom of expression.  They don’t understand that to disagree is OK.  Most of them have never lived in an environment in which that is OK.  In short, they don’t know any better.  But they need to learn.  If they choose or are forced to continue to live by the rules of their dictatorship that is a separate issue.  But they need to understand we don’t live by those rules and have no desire to.  The Chinese government reacted as they did because exposing their citizens to our way of thinking is a threat to their rule.    But in a society in which global communication is the norm, they just need to get used to it.  And if they can’t, too bad for them.