Congressional Committee Demands NBA Players Abandon Endorsements Linked To Chinese Slave Labor
A Congressional Committee on China issued a letter to NBA players on Tuesday demanding them to stop promoting sportswear companies that utilize materials made in Chinese slave labor camps.
The leaders of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China wrote to the NBA, pointing out that more than a dozen pro basketball players have signed sponsorship agreements with Chinese businesses such as ANTA, Li-Ning, and Peak to sponsor shoes, jerseys, and other sorts of clothing. Many of these items are made using cotton from China’s Xinjiang Province, which is known for its huge camps where prisoners are forced to work as forced laborers to produce the items and farm the cotton.
“Players have continued to sign new deals with Anta Sports,” said the letter from Senator Jeff Merkley (D, OR) and Representative Jim McGovern (D, MA), Reuters reports.
“We believe that commercial relationships with companies that source cotton in Xinjiang create reputational risks for NBA players and the NBA itself,” the congressmen added.
The members of the committee pointed out that the United States has publicly charged the Chinese government with genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang as a result of the forced labor camps that incarcerate millions of Chinese people. Cotton imports from the area have also been banned by the federal authorities.
“The NBA and NBA players should not even implicitly be endorsing such horrific human rights abuses,” the letter exclaims.
The athletes’ companies who they’re working with, have openly praised cotton from Xinjiang, according to the committee members, “likely making them complicit in the use of forced labor.”
“We urge the NBPA to work with its members to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide taking place in Xinjiang and the role of forced labor in the production of products made by brands that NBPA members have endorsed,” the congressional committee added.
“We hope that the result of such efforts would be that the players would leverage their contracts with Anta, Li-Ning, and Peak to push these companies to end their use of Xinjiang cotton. Short of that outcome, we encourage players to end their endorsement deals with these companies,” the congressmen said.
The NBA has repeatedly failed to comment on the forced labor camps that produce so much of the gear that bears the league’s seal of approval. Indeed, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently said that the league’s multibillion-dollar relationships with China constitute a “net plus” for international diplomacy.
In May, Silver stated, “The political science major in me believes that engagement is better than isolation.”
” “That a so-called boycott of China, taking into account legitimate criticisms of the Chinese system, won’t further the agenda of those who seek to bring about global change. Working with Chinese solely on NBA basketball has been a net plus for building relationships between two superpowers,” Silver also said.
