The NBA won’t just quit profiting off of China’s genocide and slave labor

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Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving (11) looks on during the second quarter of a preseason NBA basketball game against the Toronto Raptors Friday, Oct. 18, 2019, in New York. Sarah Stier/AP

The NBA won’t just quit profiting off of China’s genocide and slave labor

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Members of Congress are urging the NBA to sever ties with Chinese companies that use slave labor to make NBA-branded merchandise. It should come as no surprise that the NBA will ignore them and continue to profit off of slave labor unless Congress actually intervenes.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China sent letters to both the NBA and the NBA Players Association calling on the league to “lead by example and pave the way for more American businesses to stand with basic morality and human dignity.” Among the sportswear brands flagged by the commission are ANTA, Li-Ning, and Peak.

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Of course, those letters will amount to nothing, because the NBA has for years maintained a toxic financial relationship with China that requires league stars and personalities to ignore or defend China’s human rights abuses. ANTA in particular has carved out a position as a brand for NBA players, with Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson ditching Nike for the brand in 2017 and saying his goal was to become “the Michael Jordan of ANTA.”

Most recently, Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving signed a shoe deal with ANTA that made him a chief creative officer with the brand. Both ANTA and Li-Ning have issued statements in support of using cotton from Xinjiang, the region of China where the Chinese Communist Party is carrying out genocide against the Uyghurs. China has forced hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs into harvesting cotton in Xinjiang.

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The NBA isn’t going to do anything about it, though. Both the league and the players make too much money from China to cross the CCP. Thompson is on a 10-year, $80 million deal with ANTA, for example. The league still hasn’t even had to answer for running basketball academies in China where coaches were physically abusing players, including one camp that was run in Xinjiang. Why would the league or stars like Thompson and Irving voluntarily give up that sweet, sweet cash flow over a little thing like slavery and genocide?

The NBA will not abandon that cash flow unless Congress wants to step in and force the league to cut ties. Otherwise, the league and its star players will happily lecture everyone about social justice and human rights while profiting off of genocide and slave labor courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party.

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