Pence criticizes NBA, Nike in speech on China

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence took a swipe at Nike and the NBA on Thursday in a speech criticizing communist China’s record on trade and human rights, saying American corporations have been too willing to ignore censorship and repression in pursuit of profits.

Pence singled out the shoe company for removing Houston Rockets merchandise from stores in China after the team’s general manager angered the Chinese government with a tweet supporting anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.

The NBA was acting like a “wholly owned subsidiary” of China’s “authoritarian regime” for failing to stand up to the government’s criticism of Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, he said.

“Nike promotes itself as a socalled social-justice champion, but when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social conscience at the door,” the vice president said in a speech laying out the Trump administration’s approach to China.

The speech was delivered as President Donald Trump seeks to close a new trade deal with China, with Pence cast in a hardline role.

He criticized past administrations for tolerating unfair economic and trade practices and repressing Chinese citizens.

“The political establishment was not only silent in the faces of China’s economic aggression and human rights abuses, but enabled them,” he said.

President Trump’s administration has escalated pressure on Chinese trade, foreign and economic policies, including a titfor-tat exchange of trade tariffs on billions of products.

On Oct. 11, the United States and China reached a tentative cease-fire in their trade dispute. The Trump administration agreed to suspend plans to raise tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports from 25 percent to 30 percent on Oct. 15, and China agreed to buy more U.S. farm products.

Negotiators are still working out details of the modest “phase one” deal in time for Trump and Xi Jinping to sign it at an AsiaPacific summit next month in Santiago, Chile.

But the big issues dividing the world’s two biggest economies — most involving China’s aggressive push to challenge U.S. technological dominance — remain unresolved. Pence said the FBI has 1,000 active investigations into intellectual property theft, the majority involving China. In March, Tesla sued a former engineer accused of stealing 300,000 files related to an autopilot system before bolting for a job at a Chinese selfdriving car company, he said.