OPINION:
On Oct. 10, 2025, the NBA will return to China for the first time in over five years, according to a Friday announcement. In choosing profit over principle, the league is betraying its own stated values of justice and human rights and helping to legitimize one of the most repressive regimes in modern history.
The NBA’s current rapprochement with China marks a sharp reversal of its principled stance in 2019. At that time, Commissioner Adam Silver rightly refused to punish then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey for a tweet expressing solidarity with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators.
The decision to support Mr. Morey drew Beijing’s ire, prompting China to pull NBA games from state television and cut ties with the Rockets. For a moment, the league stood out as a rare example of corporate courage in the face of China’s authoritarian bullying.
Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. By 2021, when Enes Kanter Freedom was playing for the Boston Celtics and was openly critical of the Chinese government’s brutality toward religious minorities, his playing time was limited, and he was later dropped from the NBA. Dollars spoke louder than human rights.
Now, with its decision to play in Macao, the NBA reiterates and strengthens the message that China’s vast market is worth more than the league’s principles — or the lives of those suffering under the regime’s brutal crackdown on religion.
Three genocides ignored
The NBA’s return to China occurs against the backdrop of Beijing’s ongoing genocides against three religious groups: the Uyghurs, the Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners. These atrocities are not abstract policy disputes; they are deliberate, state-sponsored campaigns to eradicate entire communities.
The Uyghur genocide — the best documented of the three — has drawn global condemnation. Over 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang have been imprisoned in “reeducation“ camps, where they endure forced labor, sterilization, indoctrination and torture. Families are torn apart, mosques are demolished and Uyghur culture is being systematically erased. This is not just an attack on a minority group; it is an attempt to extinguish an entire people.
Meanwhile, in Tibet, decades of Chinese oppression have escalated into what many human rights watchers consider cultural genocide. Beijing’s policies in Tibet include the forced assimilation of Tibetan children into Chinese boarding schools, the suppression of the Tibetan language and the destruction of Buddhist monasteries. Reports of torture, arbitrary detention and forced sterilization are widespread.
Then there is the genocide against practitioners of Falun Gong, a peaceful movement that has been systematically targeted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999. The regime’s campaign against Falun Gong has included mass arrests, torture and even organ harvesting. Investigations by human rights groups and international bodies have revealed the harrowing scale of this atrocity, yet the global response has been tepid at best.
By agreeing to play two 2025 preseason games in Macao — and more the next year, according to media sources — the NBA is aiding Beijing’s attempts at “sportswashing.“ It is using the allure of international sports to distract from its egregious abuses of human rights. Each slam-dunk and highlight reel broadcast in China will serve as propaganda for a regime desperate to rehabilitate its global image.
The NBA may see itself as apolitical, but its decision to return to China is an unmistakable political statement: The league values access to China’s lucrative market more than it values human dignity. As for China, it needs the legitimacy of the NBA much more than the NBA needs the money. This money has blood on it.
A call for accountability
The NBA’s leadership must ask itself whether partnering with China is worth the cost. The league risks losing the trust of fans, players and stakeholders who expect it to uphold its professed values. It is not too late for the NBA to reconsider, cancel its games in Macao and issue a clear statement condemning China’s human rights abuses.
Standing for freedom
China’s leaders are betting that the world will choose economic convenience over moral clarity. They are counting on institutions like the NBA to help normalize their actions through the soft power of sports and entertainment. The NBA is playing right into Beijing’s hands and is complicit in the whitewashing of crimes against humanity.
We must demand better. The values of freedom, justice, and human dignity are not negotiable. The time has come for the NBA to reverse course, for corporate leaders to hold China accountable, and for governments to recognize the full scope of Beijing’s atrocities. The stakes could not be higher, and history will judge the choices we make today.
• Sam Brownback is former U.S. ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom and co-chair of the IRF Summit. Enes Kanter Freedom is a former professional basketball player blackballed by the NBA for speaking about human rights abuses in China.
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