Not for the first time, the NBA is in hot water with China.
Enes Kanter, center for the Boston Celtics, posted a video on social media on Wednesday calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” over China’s treatment of Tibet. “My message to the Chinese government is ‘free Tibet,'” Kanter said. “Under the Chinese government’s brutal rule, Tibetan people’s basic rights and freedoms are non-existent.” Later that day, when the Celtics took to the court in their season-opening game against the New York Knicks, Kanter wore shoes with the message “Free Tibet” emblazoned on them. To say this didn’t go down well in China is an understatement. Tibet is an internationally recognized region within the People’s Republic of China, though many Tibetans dispute the legitimacy of Beijing’s governance. The spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, has been living in exile since a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959; since then, Beijing’s control of Tibet has only tightened. Kanter, who was raised in Turkey, has been vocal before in defense of various political causes, including criticisms of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He faced death threats and the criminal trial of his father back home as a result. His latest comments prompted an almost immediate backlash in China, with fans denouncing Kanter and the Celtics on Chinese social media. The Celtics’ official page on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, was flooded with demands for the team to punish Kanter or offer a public apology. One popular Celtics fan page on Weibo said it would not be posting updates from the team because of a player’s social media oversights.
