Co-owner of NBA's Warriors slammed after saying 'nobody cares about the Uyghurs' Chamath Palihapitiya, a 45-year-old venture capitalist and minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, is under attack on Twitter for saying, "Nobody cares" about the Uyghur genocide in China.
"Nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, okay. You bring it up because you really care, and I think it's nice that you really care, the rest of us don't care," said Palihapitiya, who is also on the board of Virgin Galactic. "I'm just telling you a very hard, ugly truth.
NBA China is valued at approximately $5 billion, and the NBA owns 90% of the entity (ESPN owns a 5% stake, and several state-controlled banks collectively own the rest).
Palihapitiya said, “Nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs.” “I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all of the things that I care about, I'd say it is below my line,” he said.
In 2020, ESPN reported that there was rampant abuse of children at basketball academies in Chinese-government-run facilities co-sponsored by the N.B.A. A league spokesman recently said that the league was no longer affiliated with those academies.
Enes Kanter Freedom has condemned human rights abuses in Turkey for years. Now he claims the N.B.A. is blackballing him as he focuses on abuses in China. Sign up for the On Basketball newsletter.
Boston Celtics star Enes Kanter says he felt encouraged to speak out against China after the NBA supported players in fighting other injustices and human rights issues.
The Uyghurs, alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China.
After the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate in AD 840, ancient Uyghurs resettled from Mongolia to the Tarim Basin and northern parts of China. Ultimately, the Uyghurs became civil servants administering the Mongol Empire.
There the Uyghurs formed another independent kingdom in the Turfan Depression region, but this was overthrown by the expanding Mongols in the 13th century.
The NBA makes roughly $5 billion a year from China. Separate from that, many team owners and players, individually, are heavily invested in China.
The sport gained more popularity due to introduction of Chinese players to the National Basketball Association (NBA). Houston Rocket's Yao Ming and Milwaukee Bucks' Yi Jianlian helped improve engagement. For Chinese people, seeing these athletes playing the NBA was a great source of pride.
The league depends on the hoops-mad country for a multibillion-dollar portion of its annual revenue, which, critics say, has caused the league to remain silent on China's human rights violations, including its treatment of Uyghur Muslims that human rights organizations decry as a genocide.
It's long been known that the NBA has deep ties to China, namely through NBA China, valued at $5 billion. A new investigation shows that its owners' ties to the country go far beyond the court. The NBA's 40 principal owners have over $10 billion in China-connected investments, according to an analysis by ESPN.
Kobe was reknowned in China for his determination, underscored by a popular anecdote. Here's the widely shared story: A reporter asked the basketball star why he was so successful. Kobe replied: "Have you ever seen Los Angeles at 4 a.m.?" That cemented his work ethic in the minds of his Chinese followers.
'NBA is a big product to China' The NBA and basketball are entrenched in China. The league has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong, and nearly 500 million fans watched NBA programming on Tencent during the 2018-19 season and 21 million fans watched Game 6 of the 2019 Finals, according to NBA data.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the Chinese government started justifying its actions toward Uyghurs as part of the Global War on Terrorism. It said it would combat what it calls “the three evils”—separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism—at all costs.
Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6 to 2 percent of the total population (21-28 million people) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims are in Xinjiang, which contains a significant Uyghur population.
There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations.
Uyghur is a Central Asian Turkic language spoken by 10–11 million Uyghurs inside of China, mainly in Xinjiang and 1-1.5 million outside of China, mainly in Central Asia. Uyghurs primarily live in Xinjiang (also known as East Turkistan/Turkestan, Eastern Turkistan/Turkestan, Uyghuristan, or Chinese Turkistan).
Forced Labor
The PRC government has pressured many Uyghurs, including former detainees, into accepting employment in textile, apparel, agricultural, consumer electronics, and other labor-intensive industries, in Xinjiang and other provinces. Some factories utilizing Uyghur labor are tied to global supply chains.
This account published content regularly and was able to amass the following, making the National Basketball Association (NBA) the most followed sports league in the country of China. The NBA also deals with WeChat, a Chinese social app, where fans follow their favorite players, favorite teams, and live games.
On August 24, 1979, the NBA's Washington Bullets made a historic visit to China, becoming the first professional US sports team to be invited to the country.
Typically, the NBA has played preseason games in China and takes some regular-season games to Mexico and Europe. The NBA has a more than 40-history of doing business in China.