{"id":44937,"date":"2019-10-16T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T10:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=44937"},"modified":"2019-10-14T14:56:22","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T18:56:22","slug":"importing-tyranny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2019\/10\/importing-tyranny\/","title":{"rendered":"Importing Tyranny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to import electronics, clothing, and other consumer goods from China.\u00a0 But we are also importing Chinese authoritarianism.\u00a0 That\u2019s the price for access to China\u2019s 1.4 billion potential consumers, a price many U.S. corporations are quite willing for Americans to pay.<\/p>\n

Americans have always supported freedom and democracy around the globe, if only in words.\u00a0 But the hundreds of thousands of\u00a0 demonstrators in Hong Kong protesting for rights Americans take for granted are getting little help or moral support from the rest of the world.\u00a0 This is because the Chinese Communists will not permit it.<\/p>\n

\n

Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted\u00a0\u201cFight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.\u201d\u00a0 Such an outrageous sentiment enraged the Chinese government, which expressed its indignation by cancelling broadcasts of Rocket games and threatening the NBA\u2019s lucrative deals with China.\u00a0 Nike pulled its Rockets merchandise from China.\u00a0 Other companies, frightened by China\u2019s reaction, cancelled $25 million worth of sponsorship deals for Rockets games. The NBA fell all over itself in making abject apologies for Morey\u2019s tweet.\u00a0 Though NBA commissioner Adam Silver eventually acknowledged Morey\u2019s freedom of speech, he too, along with players and hangers-on, such as ESPN<\/a>, kow-towed<\/a> to their Chinese masters.\u00a0 (Read this detailed account<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Worse, though, was NBA enforcing China\u2019s free-speech restrictions on American citizens!\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>At a Philadelphia 76ers exhibition game against a Chinese team, a fan was ejected <\/a>for wearing a \u201cFree Hong Kong\u201d T-shirt.\u00a0 Security also squelched protesters<\/a> at a Washington Wizards game.<\/p>\n

But what happened with the NBA is only emblematic of a larger syndrome in American businesses.\u00a0 In a Federalist article entitled\u00a0Trade With China Has Turned Into Giving Away Our Values For Their Money<\/a>, Kyle Sammin details how \u201cImporting Chinese goods and Chinese profits means importing the values of the Chinese Communist Party. On free speech, consumer protections, workers\u2019 rights, the environment, and more, our open trade with China has rendered our laws null and replaced them with the dictates of a hostile, totalitarian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Facebook and Twitter, to their credit, have resisted<\/a> China\u2019s attempts to prevent their use by Hong Kong protesters, other big tech companies keep siding with the Communists.\u00a0 Google<\/a> at first refused to censor its search results, but after the Communists built a \u201cGreat Fire Wall of China\u201d to prevent its citizens from accessing the free flow of information, Google developed a search engine called \u201cDragonfly\u201d that would comply.\u00a0 Apple<\/a>, eager to protect its Chinese manufacturing base as well as its Chinese markets, pulled an app at the Communist\u2019s request that Hong Kong protesters were using to track police movements.\u00a0 Apple has also pulled the flag of the Republic of China\u2013a.k.a., Taiwan\u2013from its iPhone emojis, and has put restrictions on products from\u00a0 iTunes, iBooks, and Apple TV+ that criticize China.\u00a0 And other tech companies<\/a> are doing the same sorts of things.<\/p>\n

Hollywood opposes any censorship on the part of the American government.\u00a0 But it acquiesces to censorship from the Chinese government!\u00a0 According to a report on the issue,<\/a> \u201cU.S. filmmakers self-censor scenes, dialogue, images, and themes they fear will jeopardize their film\u2019s chance of receiving Chinese approval for import.\u201d<\/p>\n

China influences Academia by funding \u201cConfucius Institutes<\/a>\u201d on some 400 college and university campuses throughout the world, with about 100 in the United States.\u00a0 These come with content restrictions, censorship of academic conferences, and silencing of critics.<\/p>\n

There are many other American businesses and enterprises that have made themselves subject to China.\u00a0 For more details, read Jim Geraghty\u2019s We\u2019re Not Exporting Our Values to China\u2013We\u2019re Importing Theirs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That title recalls the naive claims made a few decades ago that our economic dealings with authoritarian countries would be harbingers of freedom and democracy.\u00a0 Free markets, we were told, would promote free societies.\u00a0 Well, not necessarily.\u00a0 And, evidently, sometimes the influence goes the other way.<\/p>\n

If only we could slap tariffs on tyranny.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 Police attack Hong Kong protesters, by\u00a0 Studio Incendo [CC BY 2.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)] via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As companies from the NBA to Apple Computer do whatever it takes to placate China, Americans are being subjected to Chinese censorship, restrictions, and state control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":44985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,23,44],"tags":[426,8817,431,8820,8814],"class_list":["post-44937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-international","category-technology","tag-china","tag-chinas-influence","tag-chinese-communism","tag-nba-and-china","tag-trade-with-china"],"yoast_head":"\nImporting Tyranny<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As companies from the NBA to Apple Computer do whatever it takes to placate China, Americans are being subjected to Chinese censorship, restrictions, and state control.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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