Posted on 05/22/2021 4:56:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
China is claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “full of lies and disinformation.”
That’s not necessarily untrue most of the time.
But in this case Pelosi is being blasted by Communist China’s loudest mouthpieces because she’s actually done the right thing – almost.
To protest China’s long list of serious human rights violations, which is a good thing, Pelosi has urged global leaders and diplomats to boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February.
Nice try, Nancy.
But somehow, I don’t think China’s rulers will be losing sleep over your idea.
Their country is not going to look bad in the eyes of the world or lose the propaganda benefit of hosting the Olympics because Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their global counterparts don’t show up in Beijing.
A boycott by a bunch of no-name diplomats will never persuade the Communist Party of China to release a million Uyghurs from its concentration camps, take its knee off the neck of Hong Kong or decide to transform its oppressed nation into East Switzerland.
She’d never suggest it, but what Pelosi should have proposed is for Olympic athletes in America and other free countries to protest China’s multiple crimes by staying home.
A well-publicized boycott staged by America’s elite athletes would have a great impact on China’s “good name” – and might even pressure it to free-up its 1.44 billion captive citizens a little.
I’m thinking specifically of the NBA, superstar role models like LeBron James and hundreds of other highly paid pro basketball and football players.
NBA players won’t be competing in the winter Olympics, obviously, but if they want to be consistent and principled, they need to man up and take a knee against China.
It will take a whole lot of courage. The NBA is a lucrative and extremely popular brand in China.
It makes tons of money selling its merchandise and streaming its games there. Players also derive part of their huge salaries from the league’s popularity in China.
Stars like LeBron James need to apply their high standards of justice and moral outrage to China. NBA players need to protest the bad things China’s authoritarian government have been doing to its own people – and the rest of us.
China gave the world the COVID-19 pandemic. It has colonized Tibet and threatens to annex Taiwan. It’s expanding its military presence in the Pacific.
China, to steal a phrase, is the Evil Empire of our day.
It needs to be publicly shamed and punished by the free world for its human rights violations, and the NBA and its players have the power to do both – if they can find the courage.
Many of the NBA’s players have spent the last few years taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest what they perceive to be America’s systemic racism and the mistreatment of blacks and other minorities by police.
Fine. That’s their right. Peaceful protest is part of what America is all about.
But while they’ve taken a knee for George Floyd and against America, the players just take the money from China.
They’ve turned a blind eye to the genocide of Muslims, the arrests and disappearances of its whistle-blowers and its crackdown on the people of Hong Kong – and just take the money from China.
The NBA and the players talk big about justice, but they’re all about the money. They’re not about to hurt their bottom lines by taking a knee against China.
You might say that when it comes to China the NBA and the players don’t go for the gold, they go for the green.
And Sleepy Joe got on his knees to beg the (legitimately elected) President of South Korea to support the US on Taiwan independence. The South Koreans who make more trading with the CCP than they do from Japan and the US combined told Xiden he was crazy - and for once they got it right.
CCP is AZZHOLE
China, to steal a phrase, is the Evil Empire of our day.
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Funny...it’s US troops I see all over the globe...not the Chinese. And it looks like the US government is doing a great job of abusing its own citizens right now. Whose really more imperial?
And to think there were Freepers who defended our free trade deals with a nation run like this.
Several of my friends were given a choice: train their Chinese replacements and get a very nice separation package or be dismissed immediately. Senior management desperately needed to cut costs and American workers were expensive. I will also say that the execs in my company were very highly compensated and they wanted to keep it that way. The company had gone through bankruptcy and is a shadow of what it used to be. Two other large companies in the area had similar financial issues...
I know that was the announced intention, but it went the other way. We shipped our technology, our manufacturing, and our consumer dollars there, for the privilege of paying less for the latest TVs. That money in tax revenue could have built up our infrastructure and military, but it funded theirs instead. Meanwhile, Americans went from paying into the system to collecting from it.
What's worse, after what the "isolationists" predicted would happen did happen, we tried to stimulate our economy by borrowing money to pay for the products that were made there. the money bounced around in retail for a while, then ended up going back to China where the products we could buy were made. We paid for the products twice, once when we bought them and again when we pay back the loans. That doesn't sound cheaper to me.
All of this was bad enough in itself. Consider what has happened over the past year, and manufacturing over there doesn't seem so cheap anymore.
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