Washington (AFP)
US PM Mike Pompeo regretted on Friday the NBA's attitude towards China, in the midst of a controversy stemming from a Hong Kong tweet about a leader of a North Korean league team. American basketball.
"The Chinese Communist Party detains and mistreats more than one million Uyghur Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang," the US secretary of state said in a speech to a Christian organization in Nashville, Tennessee.
"George Orwell's novel +1984+ becomes a reality there," he added. "I would like the NBA to recognize it."
A crisis erupted last Friday between China and the NBA after a tweet by the general manager of the Texas-based Houston Rockets franchise, Daryl Morey, who expressed support for Hong Kong protesters, mobilized for months to demand more autonomy from the United States. taken as growing strength of Beijing.
The NBA, of which China is one of the major markets, initially said it was "deeply disappointed by the inappropriate remarks" of the Rockets leader.
But the institution, lambasted by US officials for these statements seeming to be right in Beijing, then said through the voice of his boss, Adam Silver, she would not apologize and continue to support "freedom of expression ".
An exhibition match was played without incident Thursday in Shanghai between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets.
Evangelical Christian, Mike Pompeo slipped in his speech in Nashville that he had devoted in his youth less energy to his faith than to his dreams of becoming a professional basketball player.
© 2019 AFP