[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.