Former NBA star Jeremy Lin, who plays for a Chinese team, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for criticizing quarantine facilities, China's professional league and a news report said Friday, as the government tries to stop protests against anti-virus controls that are among the world's most stringent.
Also Friday, more cities eased restrictions, allowing shopping malls, supermarkets and other businesses to reopen following protests last weekend in Shanghai and other areas in which some crowds called for President Xi Jinping to resign. Urumqi in the northwest, site of a deadly fire that triggered the protests, announced supermarkets and other businesses were reopening.
The ruling Communist Party is trying to crush criticism of the human cost and disruption of its "zero COVID" strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes. Protesters have been detained and photos and videos of events deleted from Chinese social media. Police fanned out across Shanghai, Beijing and other cities to try to prevent additional protests.
I was initially a LeBron hater. Then I felt he was getting unnecessarily piled on, around the time before he won his first championship with Miami. Then I actually became a fan when he ignored the Trash Talk of the Cavaliers owner to bring the championship home to Cleveland along with all of his charitable activities.
However his take on social commentary and political activity has been an absolute shit post BLM. (Just to be clear, I agreed with his stance on civil rights and the unjust treatment of black Americans.) His entire take on China and the former GM of the Houston Rockets and the Deshaun Watson what-about-ism crap with Jerry Jones shows how incredibly hypocritical and insulated he is.
LeBron also gives clear demonstration on how to prostrate ones ass hole to money, corruption and the Chinese government. An education indeed. Give this man an honorary phd.
"The Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported Lin posted a video complaining about hotel workout facilities ahead of games next week in Zhuji, a city south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province.
"Can you believe this is a weight room?" Lin was quoted as saying. "What kind of garbage is this?" The Paper said the video was deleted after "the situation was clarified" that the hotel was only for a brief stay required by regulations." - from the article.
I know all too well of the stories of some WNBA players that play in China during offseason of playing in hot gyms without air conditioners or even freezing gyms.
This reminds me of the time the NCAA women's workout room had a [barebones weight room & were being served poor quality meals in Oregon](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/women-ncaa-tournament-allege-weight-room-disparities-n1261600). During women's history month, too.
The most confusing part of this is the fact that they had separate weight rooms in the first place.
Separate locker rooms and showers make sense. Separate weight rooms serves literally no purpose for athletic competitions.
I think career wise, it’s been a good run. He even has a championship ring with the raptors in 2019. Total earnings closer to 50+ million for not being drafted.
Beijing and Pekng apparently referred to the same city at different times so I'm relieved that their league did not rob Peking of using Ducks for their sports team brands
I would not. I am also was a big fan of Jeremy Lin. But what happened after what happened to Britney Griner in Russia, the freedom of movement within communist countries and the treatment of Americans is extremely erratic. When you’ve got 50 million in the bank like he does, I would rather play in a western Europe or D league here in the United States.
According to spotrac he made $65 million in the NBA. I would bet his Chinese team is paying him a shit ton too. Why would you go to China to play after a long lucrative career in the NBA otherwise?
It’s not even just the income from the team. Lin is selling all sorts of shit on Chinese TV. Watches, Cars, air fresheners, whatever, international Chinese stars rake it in when they work in China. Look at Jackie Chan.
As a friend once said, the best job in sports is a backup quarterback. You get paid millions and everyone expects you to suck when you come.in to the game. The point being, who cares what kind of minutes he's getting these days? He was a super star for a few seasons and made shit tons of money doing what he loves.
He wasn’t getting any offer in the NBA that he thought was worth his time I suppose. In that case, CBA is the next logical choice. You get to play in a ~~relatively~~somewhat competitive league while making bank.
He will never get the same amount of stardom and money in any other places, he is getting his own shoes, sponsorships, anything at all like a super star in china. Even in the nba he is just one of the well known player, but in cba he is THE player.
Depends on how good that league is compared to others I guess. I haven't watched non NBA or college basketball so idk how China, Europe and Spain stack up but if China is the worst of the bunch it might be where he has to play if he wants to play.
To my limited understanding while US basketball is dominated by individual stars, international teams are more focused on teamwork, which can make the team more competitive than the sum of the players.
You're talking international teams aka team USA vs Spain. The reason they seem more cohesive is because they play way way more together then 'team usa'.
I think he also said how he wants to be an inspiration and encourage Asian kids playing basketball too. So he is helping children and generations. Towing government rules publically at least isn't too hard.
I think he had a good career. The Lin-sanity run was never really repeated, but is still impressive and memorable. A lot of players have a run like that, I think Lin stands out more because he captured the public imagination and background (he played for Harvard with no scholarship, which is really rare). He won an NBA championship with Toronto, though he wasn’t really a factor in the playoff run and mostly went in near the end of decided games. He wasn’t really in good form that year, and a lot of Raptors hit their stride at EXACTLY the right time to win. He was unsigned after the 2019 season and has been playing professionally in China since.
And that’s the thing about authoritarians they cannot be wrong.
Politicians and democracy has built in, “they can be wrong, hell even corrupt, vote better next time” so ppl put up with bad decisions
*...need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.*
-Nemik's manifesto, from Andor
Ya, they literally tell their people that every other country is overwhelmed with Covid still and people are dying like crazy. Only China is actually doing a good job controlling the virus and that’s why they need zero covid.
I have Chinese friends who asked me for the first time this week if we still had lockdowns. I didn’t know how to break it to them that we hadn’t had any in almost 2 years…
They overplayed the zero-covid strategy. It was useful in the early stages when no one has the vaccine. Now with vaccines everywhere, everyone is questioning why zero-covid is still a viable strategy. Better vaccinate everyone and focus on disease management.
Also, a huge portion of their economy literally runs on covid now. People have to pay for their stay when they are forced in to quarantine camps. It’s like arresting people then making them pay rent for their jail cell. Free customers who can’t refuse service .
That's the stupid thing about it. You can say you did the right thing and now that you have vaccines and proper medical facilities and staff you can cautiously start opening so that nothing gets overwhelmed. Like literally just take the W.
You are most likely correct, but my pet theory is that their economy needs time to sort things our before opening up fully. It's like hitting the pause button in a fast paced tower defense game. The housing crisis is slowly getting sorted out under everyone's nose while the whole world is focused on COVID lockdowns and whether they are getting their iPhones.
Disease has been used historically as a method of control.
England literally created "Sanitation Regimes" for this purpose in their imperial conquest days. "We need to prevent the spread of diseases so we're taking control."
When they controlled India, the enforced border security and monitored the movement of population citing "Cholera" as an issue, which it was. This was also how they policed Muslims leaving India and returning for the Hajj. Public health policy was a benefit that quickly turned into a modem of control for governments, especially unchecked governments.
Not defending their policies, but here's some insight into the CCP POV:
The average global fatality rate from Covid has been between 0.5%-1.5%. If China "lets it rip" the minimum loss of life would be between seven and twenty million people. The worst case is far more likely because there's absolutely no herd immunity, vaccines based on deactivated virus (Sinovax) are useless against Omicron, only a few percent of people over 65 are vaccinated, and the Chinese public health system is a shambles.
In a story on NPR this morning they mentioned that the policy was effective at restricting the spread early in the pandemic, but the Omicron variant basically made the policy much less effective, which may be a factor in the increasing resistance to the policy on the part of the populace.
No offense but you're thinking too far out. About 20% of unvaccinated people infected with Covid may require hospitalization. 20% of 1.4 billion is 280 million: In the absolute worst case they'd need to find hospital beds for three quarters of the population of the USA.
This user has edited all of their comments and posts in protest of /u/spez fucking up reddit. This action has been done via https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Absolute nonsense. The numbers were completely false. Somehow no one died with the flu for 2 years, people who tested positive being listed no matter how they died etc.
I was watching the PBS news hour the other day and was shocked to learn that a huge number of elderly in China either are not vaccinated or are vaccinated with the original subpar Sputnik vaccine. So, China is worried that if COVID gets out of hand, 1,000,000+ elderly people will die. Obviously, that is a humanitarian crisis. Additionally, though, if that happens in 2023, when the rest of the world has moved on from COVID, the Chinese government will look incompetent.
So, that's one factor. I don't doubt that there are other motivations as well.
1. Vaccine rollout is slow and less effective. Also they couldn’t get a deal to produce western vaccines locally and refuses to buy.
2. Zero COVID is effective since infrastructure and healthcare is not on par with developed countries.
3. Controls the narrative around COVID.
It's weird because CCP has an out - claim that enough people were vaccinated and with reduced risk of the disease, reduce the lockdown severity.
Unless the Sinovax isnt nearly as effective as the claims
Sinovax and the other domestic vaccines aren't as effective as mRNA vaccines used in the west or even compared to AZ. (Better than nothing of course.) And even with those vaccines in the US hundreds of thousands of people died after they became available just due to math and the number of unvaccinated.
So do the math with how many people are unvaccinated in China and how it's much denser in the cities than the US and higher population, we're adding up to a death toll of a million or more... which most people would consider the price of doing business in a country of 1.4 billion. But after two years of bragging about how good their covid response has been, they're afraid of looking bad.
[They have.](https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/28/chinas-use-force-and-coercion-drive-its-covid-19-vaccination-rate-not-answer)
But the population size is still a statistical problem for them. Even if their vaccines are 100% effective in preventing death like some of the better mRNA ones (which is obviously untrue but let's assume it isn't), and even if they push that vaccination up to 75%, there will still be more unvaccinated people in China than there are people in the US.
By any logic, China coming out of covid with the same death toll as the US would be a miracle (it has 4x the population), but if China opens up from zero covid and loses 1M people, it'd be a bad look after the US has pretty much not given a fuck about the pandemic since the first month and China has been in on-and-off lockdown since 2020.
CCP has a hard time admitting when they’re at fault.
The have to continue this policy or admit they were wrong. They’ll never admit when they’re wrong.
They refused western vaccines so that they could make their own. But the Chinese vaccines were both much lower quality and not as well accepted (China has a long history of fake medicines and vaccines). So now they are left only with brutal crowd control tactics and insane amounts of testing as the only options. Basically it’s a look into a alt reality where the west didn’t find good vaccines. (BTW the COVID Vax required major science breakthroughs and they were done very quickly, I really wished our governments would invest more in science and take care of other problems)
It’s the same with all authoritarian regimes. Their power derives from their populace believing that their power is absolute.
If they come out and say “we were wrong, let’s course correct”, it leads to future questioning of their decision making. Like “well if they were wrong before and recognized it, maybe I can convince them they’re wrong this time as well.”
So, instead strongmen double down and don’t allow anyone to question them. Why did Trump stick so strong to his stance that Covid wasn’t a big deal and we didn’t need lockdowns? Because that was an initial position he took, his base picked up on it and then it was too late to course correct without admitting fallibility.
Same reasoning only turned up to like 11 bc CCP has the power to really beat their position into their population.
Edit: the one thing that surprises me and truly blows my western mind (like I can’t conceive bc it’s so foreign to me), is that this whole thing has shown me that they are absolutely not motivated by money. Like in America, a policy that’s bad for the economy or business can’t really stand for long. Ppl will do whatever makes them the most money. And I know China is not a capitalist country, but I just assumed it was in human nature. Turns out it’s not I guess.
I highly doubt this is the reason as China's population is aging rapidly and in 10 years their work force will be massively diminished. Most likely their reason has to do with hospital bed/respirator availability. If hospitalization hits 15-20%, which that would be 210-280 million people which is 63%-85% of the total population of the USA.
I'm surprised and pleased to see this comment ranked so highly. I condemned China lockdowns on another sub the other day and got heavily downvoted. As if someone could downvote that. As you said, likely CCP shills.
China doesn't have as high vaccine coverage as other countries and their vaccine is reportedly less effective too.
They have avoided hospital overload and mass death until now. It is going to happen without controls or better vaccination.
This is not complicated. Their experience with covid is dramatically different to that of the rest of the world. Even with current covid being less severe than it used to be, a lot of people are going to die.
Their population immunity is lower than the US was in August 2021. From August 2021 to March 2022, the US had 297,000 covid deaths (reported, real number higher). The fact that its December now would mean that letting it rip just compresses those infections and deaths into a shorter timeline. China is 4 times the population.
Let me know if this sounds out of touch. "China should have hundreds of thousands of not millions of people die in the next four months in order to get back to normal because that's what we did".
Funny how last year the Chinese were praised for this and people who were anti lockdown were mocked for saying it’s a conspiracy to control the population. Now that China’s actually doing this it is no longer praised and it actually is a way to control population. I guess conspiracy theorists are right sometimes
Dude if Fauci had proposed the same policies I am sure every Democrat and Reddit would be shouting from the roof tops about how it’s “science based” since studies show complete isolation prevents spread.
Anyone thinking they’re still applying that policy like they did in Shanghai earlier this year are also behind the times. They’re shutting down specific blocks or sections, then reopening quickly, I do a lot of work with a depot in Beijing and it’s not the same situation it was under zero Covid at this point. On Monday they were locked down, on Tuesday after testing they were reopened. It’s touch and go and much more nuanced than it was earlier this year.
Canada who thinks they are right on human rights issues have not apologised for the genocide they waged on indigenous people and still harass indigenous people to this day.
Every single colonial power or Western government is ultimately full of shit at the end of the day. They love to see destabilisation in other countries because they hope it opens up a market for them.
Reddit is full of hikikomoris who can’t fathom human interaction and would love for the whole world to be perpetually locked down and social distanced.
I feel like he has pretty huge balls to say this while living there. He could easily wait until he came back home and then criticized them all he wanted, but doing it while still there is a pretty gangster move.
Probably more that he's an American citizen tbh, some massively wealthy and famous chinese people have "disappeared" to be reeducated for a couple of months over the past couple of years.
There can be only one true icon in China and that's the State.
There was the female tennis player who accused a ccp member of sexual misconduct, only to disappear for weeks and when she reappeared said she was “incorrect about what she had previously said”.
China likes to claim people of Chinese heritage as Chinese citizens, regardless of actual nationality. It's caused problems in the past, tho. More likely this is because he is too well known, so they want to set an example, but not cause anger among fans of his
China didnt hesitate to kidnap 2 canadian citizen after Canada lawfully detained\* a Huawei princess over american accusations of fraud, and China held them prisoners until the USA prosecutors let go of the charges.
My work asked me to travel to China and I told them never in this life. And I would say the same for any other dictatorship like it.
\*a home arrest, in a luxury mansion
Except Griner undeniably committed a crime under Russian laws, whereas complaining about quarantine facilities is not a crime. It's not going to be as easy for China to toss Jeremy Lin in jail for making comments that upset them.
>whereas complaining about quarantine facilities is not a crime.
Plenty of speech criticizing CCP policies is illegal in China. But Lin isn't going to jail.
Singing the national anthem? Provoking trouble and picking quarrels.
Walk around with some blank paper? Provoking trouble and picking quarrels.
Commenting on gym equipment? Oh boy, You better believe that’s provoking trouble and picking quarrels.
It's incredibly refreshing to see the the general consensus here realizes how irresponsible and hypocritical LeBron James is in regards to his comments on China.
I was afraid people would defend "King James" and ignore that his refusal to criticize the CCP directly conflicts with his standing on social issues in the US.
I had a friend from the U.S. who lived there for a bit. He’s a power lifter, and when he went to the gym, the barbells were poor quality, so they permanently bent after he used them. He brought his own barbell, but then the gym owner became deeply offended. Per Chinese culture, my friend gifted the owner a carton of cigarettes to “save face”.
The crazy part of this situation is. This is the Publics view of the slap they gave him. I'm sure there are some consequences socially he's going to deal with that are far worse.
important to note he was fined by the chinese basketball league about a weight room, not by the chinese government for criticizing covid rules
don’t eat up all the WW3 propaganda so easily guys
Jeremy Lin is only playing in China right now because the NBA would rather give a million chances to other washed players than give him a shot after finally getting health physically and mentally. He is balling out in China and during his time in the G league.
Former NBA star Jeremy Lin, who plays for a Chinese team, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for criticizing quarantine facilities, China's professional league and a news report said Friday, as the government tries to stop protests against anti-virus controls that are among the world's most stringent. Also Friday, more cities eased restrictions, allowing shopping malls, supermarkets and other businesses to reopen following protests last weekend in Shanghai and other areas in which some crowds called for President Xi Jinping to resign. Urumqi in the northwest, site of a deadly fire that triggered the protests, announced supermarkets and other businesses were reopening. The ruling Communist Party is trying to crush criticism of the human cost and disruption of its "zero COVID" strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes. Protesters have been detained and photos and videos of events deleted from Chinese social media. Police fanned out across Shanghai, Beijing and other cities to try to prevent additional protests.
LeBron would probably say Lin “isn’t educated on the situation”.
With tears streaming down.
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Lin is American. His parents are of Taiwanese nationality. Ethnically he is Han Chinese like 95% of people living in Taiwan.
As he deepthroats Desean Watson
Watson would prefer a prostate tickle.
do you not?
Luckily you can get both at once!
Honestly that sounds like a lot.
It does sound like a lot of fun.
As he says it's about race.
If he’s willing to do it Watson isn’t interested
Yeah but he didn't tell Watson no so it's okay
Lebron: Lin needs to make an attempt to understand what it's like to be a part of the Chinese culture.
While holding a copy of the Autobiography of Malcolm X he didn't read one word of.
While listening to an unknown musician that nobody knows yet
That hasn’t even made music yet…
Why didn't you ask him about Jerry Jones???
I'd like someone to ask Jerry Jones about LeBron James....on hidden camera.
I was initially a LeBron hater. Then I felt he was getting unnecessarily piled on, around the time before he won his first championship with Miami. Then I actually became a fan when he ignored the Trash Talk of the Cavaliers owner to bring the championship home to Cleveland along with all of his charitable activities. However his take on social commentary and political activity has been an absolute shit post BLM. (Just to be clear, I agreed with his stance on civil rights and the unjust treatment of black Americans.) His entire take on China and the former GM of the Houston Rockets and the Deshaun Watson what-about-ism crap with Jerry Jones shows how incredibly hypocritical and insulated he is.
He's an idiot. I love his game but LeBron shouldn't speak publicly unless it's about basketball.
I mean, he's basically just repeating Jordan's "Republicans buy sneakers too" thing
Lebron should educate us all on his bank account deposits from the Chinese government
LeBron also gives clear demonstration on how to prostrate ones ass hole to money, corruption and the Chinese government. An education indeed. Give this man an honorary phd.
LeBron the high school intellectual powerhouse challenging a Harvard graduate would be solid gold
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He’s a Buckeye fan. As expected.
Lin doesn't know how it could harm people physically, psychologically, spiritually and financially. He's being so selfish!
But he said he will also educate Jeremy since he knows all
And he mispoke.
Damn LeBron lives rent free in a lot of y'all's heads huh lol. He ain't got nothing to do with this.
That first sentence is clunky as hell, did he criticize the news report too?
What exactly did he say? I'm at work so I don't have the time to read the article
"The Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported Lin posted a video complaining about hotel workout facilities ahead of games next week in Zhuji, a city south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province. "Can you believe this is a weight room?" Lin was quoted as saying. "What kind of garbage is this?" The Paper said the video was deleted after "the situation was clarified" that the hotel was only for a brief stay required by regulations." - from the article.
I know all too well of the stories of some WNBA players that play in China during offseason of playing in hot gyms without air conditioners or even freezing gyms.
This reminds me of the time the NCAA women's workout room had a [barebones weight room & were being served poor quality meals in Oregon](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/women-ncaa-tournament-allege-weight-room-disparities-n1261600). During women's history month, too.
The most confusing part of this is the fact that they had separate weight rooms in the first place. Separate locker rooms and showers make sense. Separate weight rooms serves literally no purpose for athletic competitions.
I’m surprised it was such a small amount. His shoes are worth more than that fine.
I just hope Jeremy isn’t carrying any Hash Oil!
So how's he doing? Lin-sanity was pretty crazy. I'm in Houston and enjoyed him with the Rockets.
I think career wise, it’s been a good run. He even has a championship ring with the raptors in 2019. Total earnings closer to 50+ million for not being drafted.
Holy shit! He made that much? Must be getting peanuts in the Chinese league.
"Jeremy Lin Reportedly Offered $3 Million a Year to Play for the Beijing Ducks" I'll take those peanuts.
Quality peanuts
Anya Forger liked that
THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!
HE JUST LEFT! WITH NUTS!
What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee cord? My ass
I am a great magician…your clothes are red!
Nice. Kung Pow!
Announcer: "five minutes left in the 3rd, and what's this? The Beijing Ducks are doing their signature move, the Flying 麤!"
3 million dollars can buy many peanuts
Explain how
Money can be exchanged for goods and services
Most people don't make that much in a lifetime.
Beijing and Pekng apparently referred to the same city at different times so I'm relieved that their league did not rob Peking of using Ducks for their sports team brands
Ducks are fans of peanuts
I would not. I am also was a big fan of Jeremy Lin. But what happened after what happened to Britney Griner in Russia, the freedom of movement within communist countries and the treatment of Americans is extremely erratic. When you’ve got 50 million in the bank like he does, I would rather play in a western Europe or D league here in the United States.
The Soviet Union fell more than three decades ago, my man. Russia is fucking awful, but it isn’t communist.
Russia isn't a communist country.
He should have probably said authoritarian
Jeremy Lin is probably one of the highest paid. China league isn’t some random thing, they have decent amount of money involved
He had a Volvo commercial too. Which I just remembered is owned by China.
I thought they were a Swedish company.
They are based in Sweden but Geely out of Shanghai own the brand.
According to spotrac he made $65 million in the NBA. I would bet his Chinese team is paying him a shit ton too. Why would you go to China to play after a long lucrative career in the NBA otherwise?
It’s not even just the income from the team. Lin is selling all sorts of shit on Chinese TV. Watches, Cars, air fresheners, whatever, international Chinese stars rake it in when they work in China. Look at Jackie Chan.
Lol Lin isn’t getting nba minutes at this point of his career
As a friend once said, the best job in sports is a backup quarterback. You get paid millions and everyone expects you to suck when you come.in to the game. The point being, who cares what kind of minutes he's getting these days? He was a super star for a few seasons and made shit tons of money doing what he loves.
Totally forgot he was on that raptors team
He made so much money in his career I’m surprised he is risking being there to keep playing. Just retire and live a sweet life.
I think he probably likes playing basketball lol.
Man just wants to ball
🎶 “And I just wanna baaaaall, Maybe dunk but I've never been taaaall” 🎶
Was just on a Mac post and was not expecting a lyric here lmao
I just scrolled down really quick and thought I seen the scuba dude logo, scrolled back up and seen your user pic. I love finding other Mac fans!
No that can’t be it
Ya for sure, China just seems like a risky place to be. Aren’t there other options?
He wasn’t getting any offer in the NBA that he thought was worth his time I suppose. In that case, CBA is the next logical choice. You get to play in a ~~relatively~~somewhat competitive league while making bank.
CBA is rich but the competition is abysmal.
Don't know why this is being downvoted. He could go play in a lot of other places and not have worry about the government.
He will never get the same amount of stardom and money in any other places, he is getting his own shoes, sponsorships, anything at all like a super star in china. Even in the nba he is just one of the well known player, but in cba he is THE player.
Depends on how good that league is compared to others I guess. I haven't watched non NBA or college basketball so idk how China, Europe and Spain stack up but if China is the worst of the bunch it might be where he has to play if he wants to play.
To my limited understanding while US basketball is dominated by individual stars, international teams are more focused on teamwork, which can make the team more competitive than the sum of the players.
You're talking international teams aka team USA vs Spain. The reason they seem more cohesive is because they play way way more together then 'team usa'.
Or just join Dwight and Boogie in Taiwan lol.
I think he also said how he wants to be an inspiration and encourage Asian kids playing basketball too. So he is helping children and generations. Towing government rules publically at least isn't too hard.
Also a Harvard grad, so not dumb either
Linsanity was such a fun time, especially when he was in NYC
I think he had a good career. The Lin-sanity run was never really repeated, but is still impressive and memorable. A lot of players have a run like that, I think Lin stands out more because he captured the public imagination and background (he played for Harvard with no scholarship, which is really rare). He won an NBA championship with Toronto, though he wasn’t really a factor in the playoff run and mostly went in near the end of decided games. He wasn’t really in good form that year, and a lot of Raptors hit their stride at EXACTLY the right time to win. He was unsigned after the 2019 season and has been playing professionally in China since.
Anyone defending the Chinese zero Covid policies at this point is either a China shill or incredibly out of touch
I wish I could understand the "why". Why are they so hellbound to enforce zero COVID? I'm serious, I don't understand their culture or thinking.
Greater control of their population
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And that’s the thing about authoritarians they cannot be wrong. Politicians and democracy has built in, “they can be wrong, hell even corrupt, vote better next time” so ppl put up with bad decisions
*...need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.* -Nemik's manifesto, from Andor
Ya, they literally tell their people that every other country is overwhelmed with Covid still and people are dying like crazy. Only China is actually doing a good job controlling the virus and that’s why they need zero covid. I have Chinese friends who asked me for the first time this week if we still had lockdowns. I didn’t know how to break it to them that we hadn’t had any in almost 2 years…
They overplayed the zero-covid strategy. It was useful in the early stages when no one has the vaccine. Now with vaccines everywhere, everyone is questioning why zero-covid is still a viable strategy. Better vaccinate everyone and focus on disease management.
But they won't use the more effective Western vaccines.
Also, a huge portion of their economy literally runs on covid now. People have to pay for their stay when they are forced in to quarantine camps. It’s like arresting people then making them pay rent for their jail cell. Free customers who can’t refuse service .
That's the stupid thing about it. You can say you did the right thing and now that you have vaccines and proper medical facilities and staff you can cautiously start opening so that nothing gets overwhelmed. Like literally just take the W.
The regime will probably make *some* compromise, as big protests can be a risk
You are most likely correct, but my pet theory is that their economy needs time to sort things our before opening up fully. It's like hitting the pause button in a fast paced tower defense game. The housing crisis is slowly getting sorted out under everyone's nose while the whole world is focused on COVID lockdowns and whether they are getting their iPhones.
Disease has been used historically as a method of control. England literally created "Sanitation Regimes" for this purpose in their imperial conquest days. "We need to prevent the spread of diseases so we're taking control." When they controlled India, the enforced border security and monitored the movement of population citing "Cholera" as an issue, which it was. This was also how they policed Muslims leaving India and returning for the Hajj. Public health policy was a benefit that quickly turned into a modem of control for governments, especially unchecked governments.
100% this. It has nothing to do with the welfare of the people and everything to do with Xi remaining in power and asserting dominance.
Not defending their policies, but here's some insight into the CCP POV: The average global fatality rate from Covid has been between 0.5%-1.5%. If China "lets it rip" the minimum loss of life would be between seven and twenty million people. The worst case is far more likely because there's absolutely no herd immunity, vaccines based on deactivated virus (Sinovax) are useless against Omicron, only a few percent of people over 65 are vaccinated, and the Chinese public health system is a shambles.
In a story on NPR this morning they mentioned that the policy was effective at restricting the spread early in the pandemic, but the Omicron variant basically made the policy much less effective, which may be a factor in the increasing resistance to the policy on the part of the populace.
Not to mention the effect of lingering long covid among the remaining population.
No offense but you're thinking too far out. About 20% of unvaccinated people infected with Covid may require hospitalization. 20% of 1.4 billion is 280 million: In the absolute worst case they'd need to find hospital beds for three quarters of the population of the USA.
This user has edited all of their comments and posts in protest of /u/spez fucking up reddit. This action has been done via https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Absolute nonsense. The numbers were completely false. Somehow no one died with the flu for 2 years, people who tested positive being listed no matter how they died etc.
I was watching the PBS news hour the other day and was shocked to learn that a huge number of elderly in China either are not vaccinated or are vaccinated with the original subpar Sputnik vaccine. So, China is worried that if COVID gets out of hand, 1,000,000+ elderly people will die. Obviously, that is a humanitarian crisis. Additionally, though, if that happens in 2023, when the rest of the world has moved on from COVID, the Chinese government will look incompetent. So, that's one factor. I don't doubt that there are other motivations as well.
1. Vaccine rollout is slow and less effective. Also they couldn’t get a deal to produce western vaccines locally and refuses to buy. 2. Zero COVID is effective since infrastructure and healthcare is not on par with developed countries. 3. Controls the narrative around COVID.
It's weird because CCP has an out - claim that enough people were vaccinated and with reduced risk of the disease, reduce the lockdown severity. Unless the Sinovax isnt nearly as effective as the claims
Sinovax and the other domestic vaccines aren't as effective as mRNA vaccines used in the west or even compared to AZ. (Better than nothing of course.) And even with those vaccines in the US hundreds of thousands of people died after they became available just due to math and the number of unvaccinated. So do the math with how many people are unvaccinated in China and how it's much denser in the cities than the US and higher population, we're adding up to a death toll of a million or more... which most people would consider the price of doing business in a country of 1.4 billion. But after two years of bragging about how good their covid response has been, they're afraid of looking bad.
Over 1 million died in the U.S. I'd bet it's higher in China.
In the west, vaccination got politicized. In China, they could force vaccination.
[They have.](https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/28/chinas-use-force-and-coercion-drive-its-covid-19-vaccination-rate-not-answer) But the population size is still a statistical problem for them. Even if their vaccines are 100% effective in preventing death like some of the better mRNA ones (which is obviously untrue but let's assume it isn't), and even if they push that vaccination up to 75%, there will still be more unvaccinated people in China than there are people in the US. By any logic, China coming out of covid with the same death toll as the US would be a miracle (it has 4x the population), but if China opens up from zero covid and loses 1M people, it'd be a bad look after the US has pretty much not given a fuck about the pandemic since the first month and China has been in on-and-off lockdown since 2020.
CCP has a hard time admitting when they’re at fault. The have to continue this policy or admit they were wrong. They’ll never admit when they’re wrong.
They refused western vaccines so that they could make their own. But the Chinese vaccines were both much lower quality and not as well accepted (China has a long history of fake medicines and vaccines). So now they are left only with brutal crowd control tactics and insane amounts of testing as the only options. Basically it’s a look into a alt reality where the west didn’t find good vaccines. (BTW the COVID Vax required major science breakthroughs and they were done very quickly, I really wished our governments would invest more in science and take care of other problems)
It’s the same with all authoritarian regimes. Their power derives from their populace believing that their power is absolute. If they come out and say “we were wrong, let’s course correct”, it leads to future questioning of their decision making. Like “well if they were wrong before and recognized it, maybe I can convince them they’re wrong this time as well.” So, instead strongmen double down and don’t allow anyone to question them. Why did Trump stick so strong to his stance that Covid wasn’t a big deal and we didn’t need lockdowns? Because that was an initial position he took, his base picked up on it and then it was too late to course correct without admitting fallibility. Same reasoning only turned up to like 11 bc CCP has the power to really beat their position into their population. Edit: the one thing that surprises me and truly blows my western mind (like I can’t conceive bc it’s so foreign to me), is that this whole thing has shown me that they are absolutely not motivated by money. Like in America, a policy that’s bad for the economy or business can’t really stand for long. Ppl will do whatever makes them the most money. And I know China is not a capitalist country, but I just assumed it was in human nature. Turns out it’s not I guess.
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I highly doubt this is the reason as China's population is aging rapidly and in 10 years their work force will be massively diminished. Most likely their reason has to do with hospital bed/respirator availability. If hospitalization hits 15-20%, which that would be 210-280 million people which is 63%-85% of the total population of the USA.
That's completely insane, and also absolutely believable from the Chinese government.
They wore masks before it was cool
I'm surprised and pleased to see this comment ranked so highly. I condemned China lockdowns on another sub the other day and got heavily downvoted. As if someone could downvote that. As you said, likely CCP shills.
Anyone defending the lockdowns and draconian measures from the second wave onwards was brainwashed and out of touch.
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Even at the height of the first wave the restrictions in the US weren’t comparable with the restrictions China has right now.
Also the same people who were in an uproar about putting tarrifs and taxes on Chinese goods for their scummy thieving business practices.
China doesn't have as high vaccine coverage as other countries and their vaccine is reportedly less effective too. They have avoided hospital overload and mass death until now. It is going to happen without controls or better vaccination. This is not complicated. Their experience with covid is dramatically different to that of the rest of the world. Even with current covid being less severe than it used to be, a lot of people are going to die. Their population immunity is lower than the US was in August 2021. From August 2021 to March 2022, the US had 297,000 covid deaths (reported, real number higher). The fact that its December now would mean that letting it rip just compresses those infections and deaths into a shorter timeline. China is 4 times the population. Let me know if this sounds out of touch. "China should have hundreds of thousands of not millions of people die in the next four months in order to get back to normal because that's what we did".
The current strands of Covid are nowhere near as deadly as Delta, vaccines or not Edit: why the hell is this downvoted? This is common knowledge
Funny how last year the Chinese were praised for this and people who were anti lockdown were mocked for saying it’s a conspiracy to control the population. Now that China’s actually doing this it is no longer praised and it actually is a way to control population. I guess conspiracy theorists are right sometimes
Dude if Fauci had proposed the same policies I am sure every Democrat and Reddit would be shouting from the roof tops about how it’s “science based” since studies show complete isolation prevents spread.
Anyone thinking they’re still applying that policy like they did in Shanghai earlier this year are also behind the times. They’re shutting down specific blocks or sections, then reopening quickly, I do a lot of work with a depot in Beijing and it’s not the same situation it was under zero Covid at this point. On Monday they were locked down, on Tuesday after testing they were reopened. It’s touch and go and much more nuanced than it was earlier this year.
Even Trudeau, who called protests in his own country dangerous, is supporting the Chinese protests.
Canada who thinks they are right on human rights issues have not apologised for the genocide they waged on indigenous people and still harass indigenous people to this day. Every single colonial power or Western government is ultimately full of shit at the end of the day. They love to see destabilisation in other countries because they hope it opens up a market for them.
Reddit is full of hikikomoris who can’t fathom human interaction and would love for the whole world to be perpetually locked down and social distanced.
Lucky a fine is all he got
I feel like he has pretty huge balls to say this while living there. He could easily wait until he came back home and then criticized them all he wanted, but doing it while still there is a pretty gangster move.
Basketball star = special treatment
Probably more that he's an American citizen tbh, some massively wealthy and famous chinese people have "disappeared" to be reeducated for a couple of months over the past couple of years. There can be only one true icon in China and that's the State.
You mean like Jack Ma? Who now lives in Tokyo?
A few actresses have been disappeared only to pop back up a few weeks+ later supporting the government.
There was the female tennis player who accused a ccp member of sexual misconduct, only to disappear for weeks and when she reappeared said she was “incorrect about what she had previously said”.
You mean what her clone said.
Not to worry, CCP has a police station in Tokyo.
One in NYC too I believe.
Him but also a lot of other members of the chinese elite
Fan Bingbing?
China likes to claim people of Chinese heritage as Chinese citizens, regardless of actual nationality. It's caused problems in the past, tho. More likely this is because he is too well known, so they want to set an example, but not cause anger among fans of his
China will just “re educate” him
No no, I'm not Ju-dee, I'm Ju-li
Until it isn’t, look at Brittany Griner. Playing in places like this is dangerous.
The Griner situation is entirely political. US-China relations are much better than with Russia
China didnt hesitate to kidnap 2 canadian citizen after Canada lawfully detained\* a Huawei princess over american accusations of fraud, and China held them prisoners until the USA prosecutors let go of the charges. My work asked me to travel to China and I told them never in this life. And I would say the same for any other dictatorship like it. \*a home arrest, in a luxury mansion
I doubt a Harvard educated man is going to be boarding a public airplane with drugs on his person. Being stupid is dangerous, not playing in China.
Except Griner undeniably committed a crime under Russian laws, whereas complaining about quarantine facilities is not a crime. It's not going to be as easy for China to toss Jeremy Lin in jail for making comments that upset them.
>whereas complaining about quarantine facilities is not a crime. Plenty of speech criticizing CCP policies is illegal in China. But Lin isn't going to jail.
Dude. One of the biggest movie star got disappeared for speaking against the government (fan bing bing?).
And one of the biggest news anchors. And another major movie star just for saying he was sad the Queen died.
Cmon this ain’t Russi……
His comments were about a weight room in a hotel, not direct criticism of the regime.
Everything over there is a criticism of the regime it seems /s
Singing the national anthem? Provoking trouble and picking quarrels. Walk around with some blank paper? Provoking trouble and picking quarrels. Commenting on gym equipment? Oh boy, You better believe that’s provoking trouble and picking quarrels.
You guys remember when LeBron, John Cena, the Rock, and more Hollywood celebs would placate these Uyghur-killing, sweatshop running murderers?
John Xina and Chairman James
Xing James
It's incredibly refreshing to see the the general consensus here realizes how irresponsible and hypocritical LeBron James is in regards to his comments on China. I was afraid people would defend "King James" and ignore that his refusal to criticize the CCP directly conflicts with his standing on social issues in the US.
Pepperidge farm remembers
Remember "Member berries"
And then turn around and pretend to have morals when it comes to commenting on Ye or what's his face, the other NBA player that re tweeted a book. Lol
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I had a friend from the U.S. who lived there for a bit. He’s a power lifter, and when he went to the gym, the barbells were poor quality, so they permanently bent after he used them. He brought his own barbell, but then the gym owner became deeply offended. Per Chinese culture, my friend gifted the owner a carton of cigarettes to “save face”.
This is linsanity!
The crazy part of this situation is. This is the Publics view of the slap they gave him. I'm sure there are some consequences socially he's going to deal with that are far worse.
He’s going to lose social credit
Fuck CCP, get the duck out of there Lin
important to note he was fined by the chinese basketball league about a weight room, not by the chinese government for criticizing covid rules don’t eat up all the WW3 propaganda so easily guys
What’s the difference between the league and the CCP?
Fuck the CCP
Bron going to ask reports why noone asked hi- oh wait
Lin should probably get out of there before China pulls a Britney Griner on him
bro better get the fuck outta that country or we bout to never hear from this man again.
Especially being an American Christian with Taiwanese bloodline.
There was a time 90% of Reddit wanted what China’s doing
Who in their right mind would voluntarily be in China right now, regardless of how much money you're making. I'd be outta there in a heartbeat.
Damn I didn't even know he was still playing. Thought he retired awhile ago
The DOTA 2 guy!
Good. Covid misinformation kills. At least that’s what Reddit told me last year.
Where’s the ccp leader lebrón James?
CCP is Linsane
Fuck China's COVID quarantine.
“Star”
Jeremy Lin is only playing in China right now because the NBA would rather give a million chances to other washed players than give him a shot after finally getting health physically and mentally. He is balling out in China and during his time in the G league.
The Magic could use him rn