WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence is speaking out about the NBA’s relationship with China.
During an event yesterday Washington DC, Pence said the National Basketball Association is, “acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary” of the Chinese Communist Party.
He noted that a number of the league’s top players and team owners, who frequently use their freedom of speech to criticize America, are being left without a voice “when it comes to the freedom and rights of other peoples.”
Pence’s comments come after the NBA apologized for a tweet by the Houston Rockets G.M. Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong’s anti-government protestors earlier in the month.
China is one of the NBA’s biggest markets and a spokesperson for the country’s foreign minister is blasting Pence’s comments as arrogant, saying “the U.S. has already abandoned and cast aside its morality and credibility.’
(PHOTO: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
