How China slam-dunked the NBA
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does the China-NBA bust-up mean that the Chinese are falling out of love with US basketball - and US business in general?
One thoughtless tweet in support of Hong Kong protestors by Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets Basketball team, has kicked off a diplomatic storm, with Chinese TV stations cancelling the planned airing of NBA exhibition basketball games. It certainly reflects a much more prickly, nationalistic mood in China at a time when the country feels under attack from the US government's trade sanctions. Fenella Barber of China business consultancy Bao Advisory says it is typical of the cultural misunderstandings that still occur when Western businesses try to break into the country's gigantic fast-growing consumer market.
But Andrew Coflan of geopolitical strategists Eurasia Group says the kerfuffle says a lot more about internal Chinese politics than the business environment, which Beijing is actually working hard to make more foreigner-friendly. Meanwhile journalist and businessman James MacGregor explains why so many US companies are thinking about exiting China - and it's not just because of the escalating trade war.
(Photo: Lakers fans with Chinese flags at an NBA game in Shenzhen. China: Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.0 | Today we're looking at what happens when your boss fires off a tweet |
| 0:09.4 | and accidentally upsets the People's Republic of China. |
| 0:12.9 | The MBA hit an anniversary really badly, unaware of the potential repercussions. |
| 0:19.6 | Yes, the MBA has been in the dock for talking Hong Kong |
| 0:22.3 | democracy this month, and they're not the only ones feeling Chinese sensitivities. The larger |
| 0:28.0 | multinationals are really struggling with this question of exposure, both economically and |
| 0:35.1 | politically, because they've come to represent values as well as products. |
| 0:39.9 | But should companies, indeed, can they afford to take sides? Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:47.8 | Okay, so for those of you who've missed last week's arguments between Beijing and the NBA, |
| 0:53.0 | America's National Basketball Association. |
| 0:55.0 | Here it is. A simple, super quick reminder, or at least as quick as I can make it. |
| 1:00.0 | Darrell Mori, general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, kicked it all off last week with a tweet. |
| 1:06.3 | In it, he supported the Hong Kong democracy movement. |
| 1:09.6 | Communist China responded in massive and devastating kind. |
| 1:13.1 | State TV scrapped plans to show upcoming NBA exhibition games, |
| 1:17.2 | a number of major Chinese brands severed their links with the NBA. |
| 1:21.1 | US basketball is, by the way, huge in China. |
| 1:25.6 | Here's what a few fans in Shanghai were saying last week. |
| 1:28.7 | I'm really angry. When I saw the news, I was so angry. I think he went too far. |
| 1:34.4 | My friends have changed their video subscriptions because of the Rockets, and they were |
| 1:39.0 | hardcore Rockets fans. I often watched Warriors and Rockets games. But now they've done this, I don't want to watch |
... |
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