People are discovering, through the recent unfolding of controversies involving the NBA, that businesses the world over have been kowtowing to China for several years.

This is how to do a Kowtow. The trick to do it well is to just do it, nevermind why you are doing it.

But why did the NBA kowtow to China?

Those aware of the Chinese mentality opine that the Chinese interpreted Daryl Morey’s Tweet as an affront on China’s sovereignty. Sovereignty, as you may be aware, is a serious issue in China (with a degree of importance that is analogous to that of racism in the U.S.). Therefore, the NBA — which has ties to China that include, among other things, media rights, merchandise and streaming worth billions of dollars — kowtowed to the Chinese as a form of appeasement.

If issues pertaining to China’s sovereignty issue matter, and if the Chinese can’t tolerate even a scintilla of criticism levied against it, why do Chinese people tolerate the most serious sovereignty issue: annexation of China’s territories? Think about it: Russia annexed China multiple times — it most recently annexed Tannu Uriankhai in 1999. Yet, under the Party’s fine control, one neither hears nor sees the Chinese shunning the Russians.

Those who are familiar with how the Communist Party of China operates say that if you make the CPC look bad, or if you criticise them, you’ll lose business. Case in point: all the NBA’s major business partners have vowed not to work with the NBA following the now infamous Morey Tweet; and the NBA’s kowtow serves as a means of regaining that business..

…or so it supposedly goes. But, is all (of any) of it true? Do companies truly lose business after offending the CPC or criticizing its practices? Consider Leica Camera AG, a German camera manufacturing company. In an advertisement of theirs that leaked, a Jeff Widener took the famouse photo of the Tank Man at Tiananmen Square using a Leica camera.

No Chinese company severed its ties with Leica, and Leica did not experience decline in its business. Its Chinese business partner Huawei — a longstanding brand favourite among Chinese nationalists — announced that their relationship with Leica was normal. In fact, the CPC was mostly unfazed by the Tank Man recording because the video was banned in China almost immediately. In contrast, in the aftermath of Morey’s insignificant affront to the CPC, via a Tweet that is also banned in China, all the NBA’s broadcastings rights holders and merchandise retailers withdrew from their business relationships with the NBA.

With that said… what’s really going on here? Is there a line of reasoning needed to understand what’s taking place in China?

I think I have the answer to these questions, but before I share it, I’d like to do what I did with my first post: delve into Chinese history. This time, however, I want to discuss China’s second emperor, instead of the first.

Shiji, a book written in 94BC, is usually translated to “Records of the Grand Historian” in English.

According to Shijin, Zhao Gao (赵高) was the most powerful person at the time. His role of Prime Minister to the Emperor is comparable to the role of a CEO to a Board’s Chairman.

Thinking he could be the Emperor himself, PM Zhao arranged for a deer to be presented to the Emperor’s court as a gift horse.

The Emperor pointed out the obvious: the animal was a deer, not a horse.

The Emporer sat to the left side. PM Zhao was next to him.

PM Zhao, as if giving the Emperor a zoology lesson, asked cabin members to identify the animal. Most of the members, who were obedient to him, said it was a horse. The few who said it was a deer were executed later.

This is a short story with layers of significance. On the surface, it’s about blind loyalty. It’s the Chinese version of the 13th Rule of Jesuit:

If the Church have defined anything to be black, which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black.

If you look deeper, you’ll find a different story. Carefully consider the event’s timing — PM Zhao was effectively preparing a coup. He had the stronger hand, but needed to ensure its strength. He reckoned:

If you plan a big change, you need people to choose sides first.

Though the Emperor likely didn’t have followers, PM Zhao needed the cabin members to be doubtless as to which side to join when the moment came. The ‘zoology lesson’ was a test to ascertain the cabin members’ true colours.

A few thousand years’ forward to the present, the ‘Game of Thrones’ methodology is still alive and well — force people to choose one of two sides, then annihilate the smaller side afterwards.

Perhaps now you understand why the NBA is kowtowing to the CPC. What, or who, is the NBA in our story? Is it the Prime Minister, staging a coup? Is it a cabin member, being forced to choose a side under an implied threat of death? Or is the NBA the Emperor?

The answer is: none of the above. The NBA is, in fact, the “deer,” in this situation (though it wouldn’t matter whether it was actually a “horse,” or pro-CPC or anti-CPC). Indeed, all of China knows about Morey’s Tweet, but I would wager that few Chinese know what he actually Tweeted, given how promptly the Tweet was banned in China and its lack of press coverage there. It’s truly a deer-or-horse-doesn’t-matter story.

Most Chinese who criticised Morey’s tweet has never seen it. This is how it looks like.

The CPC banned the “offensive” Tank Man video recording and, silently disallowed reports and Internet discussions of the annex of northern China territories. Yet, it responded with open aggression to Morey’s tweet — not because what Morey did was worse, but because his actions came in time for the CPC to choose a “deer” to force an alliance.

The NBA kowtowed swiftly, without figuring out that the reason was that they were chosen as the “deer”. Well done.

Once the CPC has chosen its “deer,” presented it (state-owned media bombardment), the next step is for the “cabin members” to pick a side.

China’s businesses chose well. Tencent (the maker of WeChat) and CCTV (China’s aptly-named state-owned television network) stopped broadcasting NBA-related activities on the Internet and TV respectively. Taobao and JD (the respective Chinese equivalents of eBay and Amazon) pulled the plug on their NBA merchandising. Li-ning (the Chinese equivalent of Nike) shunned the NBA. Yao Ming (Head of Chinese Basketball Association) denounced the NBA.

For all intents and purposes, this is a win for the CPC. They now know which businesses will follow them if they start a coup (e.g. nationalize assets), or implement radical measures such as stricter control over Chinese society (even if those businesses must sacrifice their profits and dignity in the process). As for the relationship between the NBA and China… well, that doesn’t matter. Who knows? It may even be allowed to live.

That’s the end of the game. Or is it? Let’s turn to the next page of the book of Grand Historian to see what happened to PM Zhao. Was he successful in his coup? Did he become the 3rd Emperor of the World (“天下,”, which today translates to “China”)?

We may never know. In the years that followed, Chinese society snapped under PM Zhao’s harsh control. The peasants revolted, assumed control over the Government’s headquarters and burned them to the ground.

In his machination, PM Zhao was too keen on the throne, and he forgot to consider how the world would have reacted. Is CPC making the same mistake again?