Major League Baseball (MLB) signed a new deal with Chinese Communist Party-backed corporation Tencent amid a boycott of Georgia’s election reform law, a move that prompted condemnation from former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and federal lawmakers. Pompeo questioned MLB’s belief that the Joe State election reform law is inconsistent with its values, but the Chinese Communist Party’s law is?
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed the Election Reform Act late last month, which requires absentee voting with photo identification (ID), equivalent to that required for in-person voters, and requires enhanced ballot box security, among other things. Republicans said the law would restore confidence in the state’s elections, but Democrats claimed it would restrict voting privileges. mlb later announced it was pulling the all-star game from atlanta, citing a boycott of the joe state election reform law.
MLB said it supports the right of all Americans to vote and that protesting this election integrity law is “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.
MLB’s agreement with Tencent triggers condemnation
Amid a boycott of Joe’s election reform law, MLB signed an agreement with Tencent, one of China’s largest technology companies, on Wednesday (March 31) that was criticized by U.S. lawmakers as “ignoring the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights violations.
Tencent had suppressed an NBA executive who supported the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in 2019. Tencent suspended the NBA’s preseason (China) broadcast schedule at the time.
The new deal authorizes Tencent to broadcast MLB games in some Asian countries until 2023. Back in 2018, MLB and Tencent struck another deal granting the company the right to stream 125 games within China.
Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted on April 2 that MLB caved in to pressure to pull the All-Star Game out of Georgia the same week they announced a deal with a company backed by a communist party that commits “genocide.”
“Why are we still listening to all this ‘woke’ (woke) hypocritical corporate rhetoric about taxes, regulations and anti-trust?” Rubio said.
Woke has been described as an “awakening” or “wake-up call” in a political or cultural sense.
In response to MLB’s agreement with Tencent, former Secretary of State Pompeo tweeted Saturday (April 3), “Georgia’s (election) law doesn’t meet MLB’s values, but China’s (Communist Party of China) law does?”
U.S. Rep. Earl Carter (R-CA) tweeted Saturday, “What MLB is doing is pathetic.”
U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (D-CA) tweeted Saturday, “MLB and hypocritical corporations like Delta and Coca-Cola are pouring millions of dollars into China, but won’t speak out about (the Chinese Communist Party’s) human rights violations against Uighurs.”
Federal Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-CA) sarcastically tweeted that MLB said, “We need to get the All-Star Game out of Atlanta!” MLB, which supposedly cares about human rights, also said, “We’ve got to get that Chinese market.”
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