[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 137 (Monday, August 3, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4658-S4661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
China
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, last week, journalists at ESPN
published the results of a bombshell investigation into human rights
violations at NBA training academies in China.
When you think about a basketball camp, you probably think of
shooting drills or running sprints, but these camps look much
different. The investigation focused on training camps located in
Xinjiang. This particular region in western China has achieved a
certain level of notoriety in recent months for the horrific political
violence its government officials inflict on the Uighur Muslim
minority. So it is no surprise that the stories told by trainers,
coaches, and other NBA employees who helped to run these camps employ
disturbing and familiar imagery.
According to the ESPN investigation, one former league employee
compared the atmosphere at the Xinjiang camp to ``World War II
Germany.''
An American coach, who worked at a similar facility, described it as
a ``sweat camp for athletes.''
Now, according to the investigation, almost immediately after the NBA
launched this program back in 2016, multiple coaches who were staffing
the camps reported to high-ranking organization officials that they had
witnessed Chinese coaches beating and berating student athletes. Bear
in mind that these reports were made in 2016. They also reported that
the Chinese Communist Party officials who were in charge of the camp
were denying students an education.
In coming to this elite camp, they were to receive both an education
and elevated sports training, but the reports, going back to 2016, said
the children were being abused, beaten, berated, and denied the
education. So why then did the NBA maintain these programs?
Money.
Communist China plays host to an estimated $4 billion NBA market.
They say that China is basketball-obsessed, and NBA execs have used
every avenue they can to take advantage of that, and they jealously
protect these relationships.
Last October, when Houston Rockets' General Manager Daryl Morey
tweeted in support of the Hong Kong Freedom Fighters, multiple league
all-stars, stakeholders, and well-connected employees lashed out in a
panic--terrified of retaliation from Beijing.
Team owner and Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai not only sided with the
Chinese Communist Party as it retaliated against the entire league, but
he characterized the Hong Kong protesters as leading a separatist
movement.
Their over-the-top reactions are proof enough of how fragile the
NBA's relationship with China actually is and who is really in control
of this relationship. The control is not with the NBA.
In June, I sent a letter to the NBA, expressing my concerns about the
training camps in Xinjiang and the league's entanglement with the
Chinese Communist Party. In their response, they announced that they
had closed their facilities in the region and that they had severed
their ties to any programs there.
The problem is that the ESPN report I referenced previously disputes
that assertion. I am reaching out for clarification on that matter, but
in their response, I hope NBA officials express clarity regarding all--
each and every one--of their business relationships with China because
the NBA and other organizations that maintain close ties to the Chinese
Communist Party believe that they are merely taking advantage of a
growing consumer market--or that is what they say. To them,
[[Page S4659]]
it is the smart, savvy play. That is what they believe. In reality,
what they are doing is giving the ball away. They are playing right
into Beijing's hands, and those hands are controlled by the Chinese
Communist Party.
Since 2013, the CCP has operated under a grand strategy to stretch
its influence across Europe, Africa, and Asia. This strategy is known
as--quite elegantly, they think--the Belt and Road Initiative. It
involves making interlinked investments over land and sea, which has
formed the beginnings of a modern day Silk Road.
The Chinese Communist Party uses energy and transportation
infrastructure development, as well as access to investment capital and
trade opportunities, to force its way into the good graces of
comparatively poor and still-developing nations.
I have seen this influence and its effects firsthand. Last year, I
traveled to the Horn of Africa and spent some time in Djibouti--a
country that welcomed China and the Belt and Road Initiative
investments with open arms.
China now holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of that
country's national debt. This is 80 percent of its debt that is held by
Communist China. The government in Djibouti, in turn, agreed to
accommodate China's first overseas military outpost, grant access to a
crucial sea lane, and implement the Orwellian smart cities program.
Now, I will tell you, if I asked you to picture a modern day
surveillance state, the chances are the picture that would pop into
your head would come pretty close to being what is happening right now
in Djibouti City.
Yet the other thing I saw while in Djibouti was its vital strategic
importance to the United States. Our military relationship is one that
exists on the frontlines of great power competition, and it is
essential to continue American commitment to and investment in African
partners like Djibouti.
Wherever AFRICOM headquarters is located, we must not lose sight of
the importance of resourcing the African continent for great power
competition. This is the combatant command that consistently proves it
can ``do the most with the least,'' and it is a front where we can play
offense, not defense, against two of our major adversaries--China and
Russia.
The way China does business makes maintaining these relationships
incredibly important. The BRI functions behind a veil of secrecy to the
tune of somewhere between $1 trillion and $8 trillion in foreign
investment. Now, think about this. China invests its dollars in the
United States. Currently, China holds over $1.1 trillion in U.S. debt.
It does that because Congress has the power of the purse, but Congress
seems to think: Print more money. We can issue some debt. We can afford
it. All the while, China is making money off of our debt. Then, with
those profits, what is it doing? It is investing in countries around
the globe.
As I said, with what we know now about the Belt and Road Initiative--
the digital Silk Road, its push in the great power competition--it has
now spent somewhere between $1 trillion and $8 trillion around the
globe. Some of these countries, like Djibouti, are holding 80 percent
of the debt in exchange for locating a military post, for having a
naval base, for building out its spy network globally. This is what it
is up to.
The low-interest loans China offers leads these countries into
unsustainable debt burdens. Some countries' overall debts to China are
well above 20 percent of their GDPs, and many of these loan recipients
exist on the brink of a debt crisis. When you get in a debt crisis--
when your debt is more than your income--what happens? The person
holding your debt does what? We know. The person owns you
In short, China has set a series of ``debt traps'' for smaller,
struggling countries so they will just go tumbling over the cliff. For
China, everything is going according to plan because that dependency
translates to control over key strategic positions all over the globe.
Yet, pretty soon, if they are not careful, organizations like the
NBA, the National Basketball Association, will be the ``National
Beijing Association.'' What is it doing? It is ignoring this. Why is it
ignoring it? Because it is convenient. Why is it convenient? The
profits look good. It is making money. China is basketball-obsessed. Do
we really think that makes it OK? I have to say that it is not OK.
What the NBA is doing is ignoring horrific human rights abuses--
absolutely horrific. It is ignoring speech repression. It is ignoring
political violence. It is ignoring religious persecution. It is doing
it all in the name of finding its next basketball superstar, and it
remains willfully blind to the manipulation tactics China uses to hide
these abuses.
Whether we are talking about debt diplomacy or enthusiastic access to
a willing market, all of it is offered up by the Chinese Communist
Party as a distraction.
I have said repeatedly that the United States must take immediate
steps to unravel our relationships with China. The rapid and
unnecessary spread of COVID-19, caused by the Chinese Communist Party's
reckless attitude in the early days of the pandemic, is proof enough of
how dangerously vulnerable we are to the Chinese influence, but this
unraveling cannot occur if governments and organizations alike refuse
to acknowledge what the American people know to be true, which is that
we had a real chance to keep China in check, but we missed the
opportunity.
The only way that we can retake control of our interactions with
Beijing is to retake control of our economy and set our own parameters
for engagement with what has become one of the most dangerous and
powerful nations on the planet.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the previously referenced article from ESPN, dated July 29, 2020
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From ESPN.com, July 29, 2020]
ESPN Investigation Finds Coaches at NBA China Academies Complained of
Player Abuse, Lack of Schooling
(By Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada)
Long before an October tweet in support of Hong Kong
protesters spotlighted the NBA's complicated relationship
with China, the league faced complaints from its own
employees over human rights concerns inside an NBA youth-
development program in that country, an ESPN investigation
has found.
American coaches at three NBA training academies in China
told league officials their Chinese partners were physically
abusing young players and failing to provide schooling, even
though commissioner Adam Silver had said that education would
be central to the program, according to multiple sources with
direct knowledge of the complaints.
The NBA ran into myriad problems by opening one of the
academies in Xinjiang, a police state in western China where
more than a million Uighur Muslims are now held in barbed-
wire camps. American coaches were frequently harassed and
surveilled in Xinjiang, the sources said. One American coach
was detained three times without cause; he and others were
unable to obtain housing because of their status as
foreigners.
A former league employee compared the atmosphere when he
worked in Xinjiang to ``World War II Germany.''
In an interview with ESPN about its findings, NBA deputy
commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum, who
oversees international operations, said the NBA is
``reevaluating'' and ``considering other opportunities'' for
the academy program, which operates out of sports facilities
run by the Chinese government. Last week, the league
acknowledged for the first time it had closed the Xinjiang
academy, but, when pressed, Tatum declined to say whether
human rights were a factor.
``We were somewhat humbled,'' Tatum said of the academy
project in China. ``One of the lessons that we've learned
here is that we do need to have more direct oversight and the
ability to make staffing changes when appropriate.''
In October, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's
tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters led the Chinese
government to pull the NBA from state television, costing the
league hundreds of millions of dollars. The controversy
continues to reverberate, as the NBA prepares to resume play
this week after a 4\1/2\-month hiatus because of the
coronavirus pandemic. China Central TV recently said it still
won't air NBA games, and U.S. lawmakers have raised questions
about the league's business ties to China.
The ESPN investigation, which began after Morey's tweet,
sheds new light on the lucrative NBA-China relationship and
the costs of doing business with a government that suppresses
free expression and is accused of cultural genocide. It
illustrates the challenges of operating in a society with
markedly different approaches to issues such as discipline,
education and security. The reporting is based on interviews
with several former NBA employees with direct knowledge of
the league's activities in China, particularly the player-
development program.
[[Page S4660]]
The program, launched in 2016, is part of the NBA's
strategy to develop local players in a basketball-obsessed
market that has made NBA China a $5 billion enterprise. Most
of the former employees spoke on the condition of anonymity
because they feared damaging their chances for future
employment. NBA officials asked current and former employees
not to speak with ESPN for this story. In an email to one
former coach, a public relations official added: ``Please
don't mention that you have been advised by the NBA not to
respond.''
One American coach who worked for the NBA in China
described the project as ``a sweat camp for athletes.''
At least two coaches left their positions in response to
what they believed was mistreatment of young players.
One requested and received a transfer after watching
Chinese coaches strike teenage players, three sources told
ESPN. Another American coach left before the end of his
contract because he found the lack of education in the
academies unconscionable: ``I couldn't continue to show up
every day, looking at these kids and knowing they would end
up being taxi drivers,'' he said.
Not long after the academies opened, multiple coaches
complained about the physical abuse and lack of schooling to
Greg Stolt, the league's vice president for international
operations for NBA China, and to other league officials in
China, the sources said. It was unclear whether the
information was passed on to NBA officials in New York, they
said. The NBA declined to make Stolt available for comment.
Two of the former NBA employees separately told ESPN that
coaches at the academies regularly speculated about whether
Silver had been informed about the problems. ``I said, `If
[Silver] shows up, we're all fired immediately,' '' one of
the coaches said.
Tatum said the NBA received ``a handful'' of complaints
that Chinese coaches had mistreated young players and
immediately informed local authorities that the league had
``zero tolerance'' for behavior that was ``antithetical to
our values.'' Tatum said the incidents were not reported at
the time to league officials in New York, including himself
or Silver.
``I will tell you that the health and wellness of academy
athletes and everyone who participates in our program is of
the utmost priority,'' Tatum said.
Tatum identified four separate incidents, though he said
only one was formally reported in writing by an NBA employee.
On three of the occasions, the coaches reported witnessing or
hearing about physical abuse. The fourth incident involved a
player who suffered from heat exhaustion.
``We did everything that we could, given the limited
oversight we had,'' Tatum said.
Three sources who worked for the NBA in China told ESPN the
physical abuse by Chinese coaches was much more prevalent
than the incidents Tatum identified.
The NBA brought in elite coaches and athletic trainers with
experience in the G League and Division I basketball to work
at the academies. One former coach described watching a
Chinese coach fire a ball into a young player's face at
point-blank range and then ``kick him in the gut.''
``Imagine you have a kid who's 13, 14 years old, and you've
got a grown coach who is 40 years old hitting your kid,'' the
coach said. ``We're part of that. The NBA is part of that.''
It is common for Chinese coaches to discipline players
physically, according to several people with experience in
player development in China. ``For most of the older
generation, even my grandparents, they take corporal
punishment for granted and even see it as an expression of
love and care, but I know it might be criticized by people
living outside of China,'' said Jinming Zheng, an assistant
professor of sports management at Northumbria University in
England, who grew up in mainland China and has written
extensively about the Chinese sports system. ``The older
generation still sees it as an integral part of training.''
In 2012, the NBA hired Bruce Palmer to work as technical
director at a private basketball school in Dongguan in
southern China, a program that predated the academies. The
school has a sponsorship agreement that pays the NBA nearly
$200,000 a year and allows the school to bill itself as an
``NBA Training Center.''
Palmer spent five years in Dongguan and said he repeatedly
warned Chinese coaches not to hit, kick or throw balls at
children. After one incident, he said he told a coach: ``You
can't do that to your kid, this is an NBA training center. If
you really feel like hitting a 14-year-old boy, and you think
it's going to help him or make you feel better, take him off
campus, but not here, because the NBA does not allow this.''
Palmer said the school's headmaster told him that hitting
kids has ``been proven to be effective as a teaching tool.''
The issue was so prevalent in the NBA academies that
coaches repeatedly asked NBA China officials, including
Stolt, for direction on how to handle what they saw as
physical abuse, according to three sources. The coaches were
told to file written reports to the NBA office in Shanghai.
One coach said he encountered no more issues after filing a
report, but the others said the abuse continued.
``We weren't responsible for the local coaches, we didn't
have the authority,'' Tatum said. ``We don't have oversight
of the local coaches, of the academic programs or the living
conditions. It's fair to say we were less involved than we
wanted to be.''
With a population four times the size of the U.S., China is
an exploding market for the NBA. The league's soaring
revenues were propelled in part by the success of former
Rockets center Yao Ming, who retired in 2011.
Tatum said the league sought advice from Yao and other
experts in China on the development of its academy program.
He also said NBA China's board of directors was briefed on
the planning and placement of the three academies, including
Xinjiang, adding that ESPN holds a seat on the board. An ESPN
spokesperson said the network ``is a non-voting board
observer and owns a small stake'' in NBA China, declining any
further comment. (Games are streamed in China by internet
giant Tencent, which also has a partnership with ESPN.)
Launching the academies had a primary goal for NBA bosses:
``Find another Yao,'' according to two of the former
employees who spoke with ESPN.
When Silver announced the plan to open three league-run
academies in China in 2016, he said the goal was to train
elite athletes ``holistically.''
``Top international prospects will benefit from a complete
approach to player development that combines NBA quality
coaching, training and competition with academics and
personal development,'' Silver said.
The league's news release announcing the academies said,
``The initiative will employ a holistic, 360-degree approach
to player development with focuses on education, leadership,
character development and life skills.''
The NBA employees who spoke with ESPN said many of the
league's problems stemmed from the decision to embed the
academies in government-run sports facilities. The facilities
gave the NBA access to existing infrastructure and elite
players, Tatum said. But the arrangement put NBA activities
under the direction of Chinese officials who selected the
players and helped define the training.
``We were basically working for the Chinese government,''
one former coach said.
After his work in the NBA-sponsored facility in Dongguan,
the league hired Palmer to evaluate the academies. He
concluded the program was ``fundamentally flawed.'' Palmer
said it not only put NBA employees under Chinese authority
but also prevented the league from working with China's most
elite players.
In hindsight, Tatum said, the NBA might have been ``a
little bit naive'' to believe the structure gave the league
sufficient oversight.
In Xinjiang, players lived in cramped dormitories; the
rooms were meant for two people, but a former coach said bunk
beds were used to put as many as eight to 10 athletes in a
room. Players trained two or three times a day and had few
extracurricular activities. NBA coaches and officials became
concerned that although education had been announced as a
pillar of the academy program, the sports bureaus did not
provide formal schooling. When the players--some as young
as 13--weren't training, eating or sleeping, they were
often left unsupervised.
One coach said league officials who visited China seemed to
be caught off-guard when they learned that players in the NBA
academies did not attend school.
The NBA was able to work out an arrangement by which
players at the academy in Zhejiang would be educated at a
local international school. But similar efforts in Xinjiang
and Shandong were unsuccessful.
Tatum said Chinese officials told the NBA that players at
the academies would take classes six days a week in subjects
such as English, math and sports psychology. He said when NBA
employees later raised questions about whether the kids were
in school, the Chinese officials reassured them they were.
But two former league employees said they complained
directly to Stolt, who's based in Shanghai, that the players
under their supervision were not in school.
Within the past month, as the NBA prepared to resume play
in Florida, it began to face new questions about its
relationship with China. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent separate letters to Silver
questioning why the NBA is promoting social justice at home
while ignoring China's abuses. The letters came shortly after
China announced a new national security law in Hong Kong that
gives authorities sweeping powers to crack down on pro-
Democracy protesters. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also recently
sparred on Twitter with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over
China.
Hawley's letter challenged the NBA for excluding messages
supporting human rights in China among statements that
players can wear on their jerseys. The approved messages are
limited to social justice and the Black Lives Matter
movement.
``Given the NBA's troubled history of excusing and
apologizing for the brutal repression of the Chinese
Communist regime, these omissions are striking,'' Hawley
wrote in the letter, which was sent to media members.
One recipient, ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, replied
with a profanity, which Hawley then tweeted out to his
235,000 followers. ESPN and Wojnarowski issued separate
apologies, and the reporter was suspended for two weeks
without pay.
In Xinjiang, the NBA opened an academy in a region
notorious for human rights abuses.
[[Page S4661]]
In recent years, the Chinese government has escalated its
use of high-tech surveillance, restricted freedom of movement
and erected mass internment facilities, which the government
describes as vocational training centers and critics describe
as concentration camps holding ethnic minorities,
particularly Uighur Muslims. The government says the policy
is necessary to combat terrorism. In September, the United
States joined more than 30 countries in condemning ``China's
horrific campaign of repression'' against the Uighurs.
Reports of separatist violence and Chinese government
repression in Xinjiang go back decades.
Tatum said the NBA wasn't aware of political tensions or
human rights issues in Xinjiang when it announced it was
launching the training academy there in 2016.
In the spring of 2018, the U.S. began considering sanctions
against China over human rights concerns there, and the issue
became the subject of increasing media coverage within the
United States. In August 2018, Slate published an article
under the headline: ``Why is the NBA in Xinjiang? The league
is running a training center in the middle of one of the
world's worst humanitarian atrocities.''
Later, the NBA would receive criticism from congressional
leaders, but it never addressed the concerns or said anything
about the status of the facility until last week.
Sometime shortly after Morey's October tweet, the academy
webpage was taken down.
Pressed by ESPN, Tatum repeatedly avoided questions on
whether the widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang played
a role in closing the academy, instead citing ``many
factors.''
``My job, our job is not to take a position on every single
human rights violation, and I'm not an expert in every human
rights situation or violation,'' Tatum said. ``I'll tell you
what the NBA stands for: The values of the NBA are about
respect, are about inclusion, are about diversity. That is
what we stand for.''
Nury Turkel, a Uighur American activist who has been
heavily involved in lobbying the U.S. government on Uighur
rights, told ESPN before the NBA said it had left Xinjiang
that he believed the league had been indirectly legitimizing
``crimes against humanity.''
One former league employee who worked in China wondered how
the NBA, which has been so progressive on issues around Black
Lives Matter and moved the 2017 All-Star Game out of
Charlotte, North Carolina, over a law requiring transgender
people to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex listed on
their birth certificates, could operate a training camp amid
a Chinese government crackdown that also targeted NBA
employees.
``You can't have it both ways,'' the former employee said.
``. . .You can't be over here in February promoting Black
History Month and be over in China, where they're in
reeducation camps and all the people that you're partnering
with are hitting kids.''
Tatum said the NBA ``has a long history and our values are
about inclusion and respect and bridging cultural divides.
That is what we stand for and that is who we are as an
organization. We do think that engagement is the best way to
bridge cultural divides, the best way to grow the game across
borders.''
The repression in Xinjiang is aimed primarily at Uighurs,
but foreigners also have been harassed. One American coach
said he was stopped by police three times in 10 months. Once,
he was taken to a station and held for more than two hours
because he didn't have his passport at the time. Because of
the security restrictions, foreigners were told they were not
allowed to rent housing in Xinjiang; most lived at local
hotels.
Tatum said the league wasn't aware any of its employees had
been detained or harassed in Xinjiang.
Most of the players who trained at the NBA's Xinjiang
academy were Uighurs, but it was unclear to league employees
who spoke with ESPN if any were impacted by the government
crackdown.
After returning from Xinjiang last fall, Corbin Loubert, a
strength coach who joined the NBA after stints at the IMG
Academy in Florida and The Citadel, posted a CNN story on
Twitter describing how the network's reporters faced
surveillance and intimidation in Xinjiang.
``I spent the past year living in Xinjiang, and can confirm
every word of this piece is true,'' Loubert tweeted. ``One of
the biggest challenges was not only the discrimination and
harassment I faced,'' he added, ``but turning a blind eye to
the discrimination and harassment that the Uyghur people
around me faced.''
Loubert declined several interview requests from ESPN.
In a bipartisan letter to Silver last October after Morey's
tweet, eight U.S. legislators--including Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Cruz--called for the NBA to
``reevaluate'' the Xinjiang academy in response to ``a
massive, government-run campaign of ethno-religious
repression.''
Even though the NBA now says it had left Xinjiang in the
spring of 2019, the league did not respond to the letter. The
Xinjiang academy webpage disappeared soon after.
Last week, in response to Sen. Blackburn of Tennessee, the
league wrote, ``The NBA has had no involvement with the
Xinjiang basketball academy for more than a year, and the
relationship has been terminated.''
John Pomfret, whose 2016 book, ``The Beautiful Country and
the Middle Kingdom'' covers the history of the U.S.-China
relationship, called the decision to put an academy in
Xinjiang ``a huge mistake'' that made the NBA ``party to a
massive human rights violation.''
``Shutting it down was probably the smartest thing to do,''
he said. ``But you can clearly understand from the NBA's
point of view why they wouldn't want to make an announcement:
Then you're just rubbing China's nose in it. What would you
say, `We're leaving because of human rights concerns?' That's
worse than Morey's tweet.''
Tatum said the league decided to end its involvement with
the Xinjiang facility because it ``didn't have the authority,
or the ability to take direct action against any of these
local coaches, and we ultimately concluded that the program
there was unsalvageable.''
Tatum said the NBA informed its coaches in Xinjiang that
the league planned to cease operations, and coaches were then
``moved out.'' But when Tatum was told that multiple sources
had told ESPN that the NBA never informed the coaches of its
plans to close Xinjiang, Tatum said he wasn't actually sure
what conversations had taken place.
Two sources disputed that the NBA had any plans to leave
Xinjiang in the spring of 2019. One coach said the league was
still seeking other coaches to move there well into the
summer and that the league's statement to Blackburn was
``completely inaccurate.''
``They were still trying to get people to go out there,''
the coach said. ``It didn't end because [Tatum] said, `We're
gonna end this.' ''
``They probably finally said, `Why are we doing this?' ''
he continued. ``Like we told them from the start, `Why do we
need to be here? We're the NBA, there's no reasons for us to
be here.''
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.