Read: China bends another American institution to its will

So now we come to the brouhaha over an October 4 tweet by the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey expressing support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Underlying the firestorm caused by one opinion from one guy in Houston is a broader worry that what America considered its historical mission in China—bringing free-ish markets that would lead to freer people—has failed. But not only that.

Even as policy makers fret that China’s government immunized itself from the baleful influence of Western values, they see that it has begun to turn the tables and is exporting its ideology around the world. In short, China has begun to shape and manage us, not the other way around.

When Morey sent out a tweet that included an image saying, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” China’s government girded itself for a battle with the National Basketball Association. State-owned television and the Chinese internet giant Tencent suspended broadcasts of preseason NBA games. A slew of Chinese companies announced that they were putting sponsorships with the league on hold. China Central Television issued a statement calling for severe limits on freedom of speech. And Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, suggested that he expected the NBA to follow the playbook of other corporations and kowtow. “The NBA has been in cooperation with China for many years,” he said at a briefing last week. “It knows clearly in its heart what to say and what to do.”

The NBA’s playbook mirrored that of other organizations that have gotten sidewise with Beijing. Initially it waffled. Then NBA Commissioner Adam Silver put out a statement supporting Morey’s freedom of speech. But in its Chinese-language statements, the NBA sounded significantly more apologetic than in its English ones. This is a tried-and-true formula. The Chinese language is the first level of encryption. Who cares if you sound spineless in Chinese when you’re stalwart in English? What’s worse, other leading voices in the NBA sought to muddy Silver’s message. The prominent NBA coaches Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr dodged questions on the issue. Rockets stars James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who make a considerable amount of money in China through the sales of merchandise and shoes, announced on Twitter: “We apologize. We love China.” On Sunday, LeBron James said he thought Morey wasn’t “educated” on the situation.

But even the NBA’s half-hearted nod to Western values is more than most international corporations can muster. When it comes to dealing with China, the league is the exception that is validating concerns about China’s growing ability to do to the developed world what the developed world has failed to do to China.

One reason that the NBA is different, of course, is that unlike normal businesses, where China can play competitors off one another, no one can vie with the league. Especially not the alternative, which in China’s case would be the Chinese Basketball Association. Despite massive investments and the fact that the CBA is now led by former Rockets’ star Yao Ming, the CBA is a joke, proffering bad basketball in arenas with no heat. China’s national team, which is composed of CBA all-stars, might not even make it to the 2022 Tokyo Olympics after its dismal showing at the FIBA World Cup over the summer.