Bipartisan committee urges NBA to ban Chinese products made by forced labor

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was sent a letter on Friday by a bipartisan congressional commission that called for the league to ban the use and sale of shoes and other apparel made by forced labor in China. 

Leaders of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a group made up of members of Congress and White House appointees, per ESPN, also requested that Silver meet with victims of China’s authoritarian government to "learn about the sad reality of genocide."

A letter was also sent to New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, who serves as president of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), which pointed out the union’s "potential complicity" in China’s forced labor use due to players wearing products made by, and having endorsements with, companies that allegedly use forced labor facilities to manufacture goods. 

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"NBA players should not be subsidizing genocide by endorsing or wearing shoes and gear from Chinese sportwear companies complicit in forced labor," Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the respective commission chair and co-chair, wrote, via ESPN. 

The letter to the league calls for banning players from wearing shoes on game days that were produced by Chinese companies that use cotton from Xinjiang, where more than one million Uyghur Muslims are currently held in barbed-wire camps. 

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Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021, which prohibited the importation of goods made by forced labor in China with an emphasis on Xinjiang, which accounts for an estimated 20% of the world’s cotton. 

However, sports apparel made in Xinjiang, as well as endorsement deals with Chinese companies whose goods are allegedly made at the camps, are not prohibited under the act.

The letter to Silver also posed several questions, including whether the league’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai have any Communist Party members. 

"We received the letter and are reviewing it," NBA spokesman Mike Bass told Fox Business Digital. 

McCollum’s letter included questions like whether the NBPA would ban the use of wearing products made by Chinese companies using materials from Xinjiang as well as endorsements with those companies.

McCollum’s letter also included the committee quoting testimony from former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who said the NBPA pressured him to stop criticizing China and its human rights record. 

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China is a large consumer of the NBA, with today’s stars being just as popular there as they are in the U.S., and the business makes roughly $5 billion per year. 

Furthermore, ESPN found that 40 principal owners in NBA franchises have more than $10 billion collectively invested in China. 

The committee said that one day after the testimony from Freedom, Dallas Mavericks All-Star guard Kyrie Irving signed an endorsement deal with ANTA, a Chinese sportswear company, following his fallout with Nike. 

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In 2022, ESPN found that 17 NBA players had deals with Chinese companies who are all accused of benefiting from forced labor in Xinjiang.