Joe Tsai's not accused of taking bribes to serve the Chinese regime. But how different is his public posture on "contentious issues" from some of those charged?

A Sept. 16 New York Times article, In New York Case, Signs of a Familiar China Playbook, described how various members of the Chinese diaspora are under suspicion for political interference in Western democracies, include a former New York gubernatorial aide, Linda Sun.

Such efforts are very different than seeking industrial or technological secrets. From the article:

What Ms. Sun is accused of doing is part of a different side of Chinese intelligence work — one that is focused on influencing political discourse so that it leans more favorably toward China’s positions on contentious issues like the status of Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing, or the repression of China’s ethnic Uyghur minority.

Wait a sec: isn't that what Joe Tsai (Taiwanese-Canadian, but his billions come from the Chinese giant Alibaba), who owns the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company, does too, more or less, without being accused of taking bribes?

Tsai's role

As ESPN's Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru wrote April 14, 2022, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is the face of NBA's uneasy China relationship:

In the United States, Tsai donates hundreds of millions of dollars to combat racism and discrimination. In China, Alibaba, under Tsai's leadership, partners with companies blacklisted by the U.S. government for supporting a "campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-tech surveillance" through state-of-the-art racial profiling.

Tsai has publicly defended some of China's most controversial policies. He described the government's brutal crackdown on dissent as necessary to promote economic growth; defended a law used to imprison scores of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong as necessary to squelch separatism; and, when questioned about human rights, asserted that most of China's 1.4 billion citizens are "happy about where they are."

Matt Turpin, the former China director for the National Security Council, told ESPN that Tsai is "under significant pressure to be seen as doing what Beijing wants him to do. I don't necessarily fault him. He's in this impossible position."

After all, Alibaba depends on cordial relationships with the government to thrive. Alibaba, which started as an e-commerce company but has grown far beyond that, is "effectively state-controlled," ESPN reported, citing a study by the research firm Garnaut Global.

Perhaps that's part of why--along with her own interests and greater availability--Clara Wu Tsai, the mogul's American-born wife and partner, is out front with the New York Liberty and the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation's Social Justice Fund.

In practice

Unlike Sun, accused of taking Beijing's money to advance the country's interests, Joe Tsai is playing a different game.

He's making sure he doesn't rock the (Chinese) boat, which means he does things like issuing an open letter in 2019 targeting then-Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey for re-tweeting in favor of freedom in Hong Kong, a sequence that pushed the NBA and China apart. 

His efforts have helped repair the relationship between the NBA and China. And that's why Tsai last February said. I think the NBA is in a very good place with respect to its relationship with China... China is actually the NBA’s biggest fan base. So what happened before, I think it’s water under the bridge.”

The bottom line

The ESPN article quoted scholar Victor Shih, who said that government workers and major business figures know they're supposed to support the Community Party:

"So over the years, I'm sure business people like Joe Tsai have learned this expectation," Shih said. "That's not like a decree. It's just over time you learn to say, 'Oh, everyone's doing this. When there's negative publicity event, now I know the norm of what I'm supposed to do.'"

The article quoted Tsai at a panel discussion justifying the tradeoffs:

"You need to understand that it is important for the Communist government that there's absolute stability in the country," Tsai said. "In the American context, we talk about freedom of speech, freedom of press, but in the China context, being able to restrict some of those freedoms is an important element to keep the stability."

Sure, he can justify it. But it's not just his personal opinion. He pushes back when his professional colleagues disagree.