U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (D-CA) sent a letter to NBA President Adam Silver (D-CA) on Thursday, March 4, condemning the NBA’s self-serving move to re-air games on the Chinese Communist Party‘s CCTV starting March 8 of this year. He questioned Shaw’s pro-Communism and asked him to answer three questions within a Time limit to learn more about the NBA’s relationship with China (the Chinese Communist Party).
According to Sports Illustrated, which obtained a copy of Blackburn’s letter. In the 2-page letter, Blackburn wrote that the NBA ignored the fact that the CCP stockpiled medical protective equipment, forced doctors to silence them and hid the spread of the Epidemic, and chose to make a deal with CCTV to reconnect with them as the international community pursued the source of the CCP virus (COVID-19), which was a “selfish operation “.
In his letter, Blackburn posed three questions to Shaw for him to respond by March 30.
(1) Account for the details of the new contract signed between the NBA and CCTV. As part of the contract negotiations, what did the NBA commit to “must comply” with when it comes to sensitive topics such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang in particular?
(2) What is the financial impact of CCTV’s ban on NBA games?
(3) What is the role of China CEO Ma Xiaofei (whose father is a senior CCTV official) in the new contract?
In 2019, former NBA Rockets GM Daryl Morey sparked an uproar when he spoke out in support of Hong Kong’s “anti-China delivery. The Chinese Communist Party’s CCTV sports channel then issued a statement and immediately suspended the NBA’s preseason (China games) broadcast schedule. The NBA has since disappeared from CCTV sports channels. Murray was also forced to resign from his position as general manager. In response, CCTV declared that “any attempt to hurt the feelings of the Chinese people will have to pay the price”.
According to media reports, during the suspension period, Xiaohua tried to seek a rapprochement between the two sides, not only appointing Michael Ma, son of senior CCTV official Ma Guoli, as the NBA China chief executive officer (CEO), but also providing $1 million worth of aid and medical equipment to the Chinese side. The NBA has announced the resumption of NBA broadcasts after the NBA released its “goodwill,” and recently, the Global Times, an official media outlet of the Chinese Communist Party, broke the news that CCTV will resume broadcasting NBA events from March 8 this year, with the first live broadcast of the 2021 All-Star Game.
Blackburn wrote in his letter that China (CCP) dominates the global production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and that the NBA’s “goodwill” is “deeply troubling after witnessing the CCP’s lack of transparency and continued gross human rights violations in the epidemic. This “goodwill” aid from the NBA is deeply troubling. Blackburn also cited U.S. media findings that Chinese Communist Party-controlled companies forced Uyghurs to produce protective gear and that the Chinese Communist Party persecuted democracy in Hong Kong, among other actions.
According to media reports, Blackburn sent a letter to Shaw last July questioning the NBA’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. She denounced Shaw at the time for “putting profits above principles” and turning a blind eye to human rights violations by the Chinese Communist Party.
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