A Hong Kong activist who testified before the U.S. Congress on behalf of democratic protesters accused NBA superstar Lebron James of blatant hypocrisy.
Early Thursday morning, Joshua Wong said James, who backed the George Floyd protests but failed to support freedom protests in Hong Kong over the past year, “only talks loud in the US.” He highlighted the basketball player’s criticism of Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, whom he called “misinformed” after the manager threw his support behind Hong Kong demonstrations in October 2019.
“Defending democracy is vital, but @KingJames only talks loud in the US,” Wong tweeted. “On China, not only is he silent, he actively shuts others up. He called @dmorey ‘misinformed’ and ‘not really educated’ for supporting #HongKong. All he cares about is money, not human rights. Hypocritical.”
Defending democracy is vital, but @KingJames only talks loud in the US. On China, not only is he silent, he actively shuts others up. He called @dmorey “misinformed” and “not really educated” for supporting #HongKong. All he cares about is money, not human rights. Hypocritical. https://t.co/vxVMWIjsjY
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) June 11, 2020
Wong, the secretary general of a youth activist group promoting democracy in Hong Kong, was responding to a Los Angeles Times article promoting James’s organization More Than a Vote, which aims to curb “voter suppression” in the upcoming election.
Though James has willingly waded into political discourse, his silence on the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party has drawn criticism from some who viewed his October comments on the situation as stemming from the economic interests of the NBA in China. Officials in Beijing canceled a number of high-profile televised broadcasts of NBA preseason games taking place in China after the exchange.
“I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand,” James told reporters in October. “And so many people could have been harmed, not only financially, but physically, emotionally, spiritually.”
