OPINION:
Last week, the Beijing Winter Olympic games officially opened with approximately 3,000 athletes representing 95 nations. The Olympics, whose hosts over the years have included Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, have always been about more than just elite athletic competition.
Amnesty International admonished the international community not to allow China to use the Winter Olympics as a propaganda “sportswashing” opportunity. China’s authoritarian President Xi Jinping, who also has general secretary of the ruling Communist Party among his other titles, propagates a mountain of lies designed to legitimize his ruthless dictatorship and whitewash China’s horrific record of human rights violations, including genocidal policies against Uyghur Muslims and crushing democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.
Seeking to avoid being complicit in China’s human rights abuses, the U.S., European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and Britain have not sent official representatives to the Olympics in a so-called “diplomatic boycott.” To my mind, however, they should have attended the Games so each and every one of them could have fulfilled their diplomatic duty to call out publicly China’s oppressive policies towards its own people.
As the Games proceed, it is now critical to counter China’s full-throttle Olympic propaganda campaign by standing up for and defending those athletes who bravely speak out in defense of the innocent victims of Beijing’s merciless repression. These athletes do so in the face of attacks from China’s vicious “wolf warriors” in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their coercive brand of public diplomacy.
The heart of the conflict between China and democratic nations is in the realm of ideas. Principles of liberty and pluralism are antithetical to China’s autocratic, communist state and to Mr. Xi’s own growing cult of personality. Through its ubiquitous state surveillance and internet “Great Firewall,” China seeks to deny its citizens freedom of expression and access to the outside world. According to Amnesty International, China, which is ruthlessly focused on eliminating any news coverage critical of the regime, has the largest number of imprisoned journalists in the world.
Olympic athletes would do well to draw inspiration from Enes Kanter Freedom. Demonstrating great leadership on human rights, the Swiss-born pro basketball star who was raised in Turkey has spoken up for the million ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang whom the government has sent to forced labor “re-education” camps, where according to the United Nations, they are tortured and subjected to organ harvesting as well as sterilization.
By calling out Mr. Xi for his repression of Tibet and for hosting the “Genocide Games,” Mr. Freedom is bravely exercising his right to freedom of speech. Chinese state TV predictably no longer streams the games of the Boston Celtics, the team that until Thursday employed the player (he was waived).
Last month, Mr. Freedom exposed the hypocrisy of Golden State Warriors minority owner Chamath Palihapitiya after the NBA executive wrote that “nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs” in China. The Warriors’ management disassociated themselves from Mr. Palihapitiya’s grossly offensive comments but — seeking to thread the needle and avoid any blowback to their lucrative business relationships in China — refrained from even mentioning the Uyghurs in their statement.
Mr. Freedom even had the temerity to call out NBA superstar LeBron James for prioritizing “money over morals.”
China was reportedly responsible for 10% of the NBA’s $8 billion in revenue in 2019 and is expected to increase its share to 20% by the end of this decade. When Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, China’s state TV terminated NBA broadcasts and demanded the NBA show “mutual respect.” The NBA reportedly lost $400 million and the Rockets $20 million in Chinese sponsorship revenue before things were patched up.
Mr. Morey apologized and deleted the tweet. Piling on in support of China’s coercive propaganda, the NBA at the time said Mr. Morey’s comments were “regrettable” and Mr. James reprimanded Mr. Morey for being “misinformed” and “not educated.”
The NBA and its superstars have been out front in combating racism and discrimination at home, where freedom of speech is constitutionally guaranteed. But by failing to be intellectually honest about China’s brutal human rights violations, Mr. James and others in the NBA are guilty of blatant hypocrisy, which risks serious damage to their reputations, legacy and cause.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a martyr to the cause of civil rights in the U.S., would have stood with the Uyghurs and other oppressed innocent victims in China, because he knew and always argued that social justice is universal.
Mr. Freedom, who only became a U.S. citizen last November, is more than just the conscience of the NBA.
He is also a powerful role model for the values and soft power which have made our nation great. Elite athletes, business executives and elected officials — especially those who ring alarm bells about the erosion of democratic values in our own country — should follow his example, courageously rejecting China’s full-court press to shut down our right to criticize and debate, which is the cornerstone of our democracy.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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