Havel flew the Tibetan flag for years and was a friend of the Dalai Lama, so I am glad to read that the Tibetan Flag is flying in Prague once again.
For anyone who doesn't know it, the Tibetan flag is one of the more striking world flags.
Probably due to inexperience with dissent since just about everyone capitulated after MFN was made permanent via WTO, whereas with MFN that had to be renewed annually and gave opponents a window to offer counter opinions.
A Facebook post from someone on the Embassy staff.
>Publicly denouncing the NBA?
From what I've seen, an article in a state run paper.
The embassy event is strange, but I'm pretty sure they routinely publish similar articles in their paper.
I think something is causing the Western media to cover the recent cases in detail, and they write the articles to imply the message came from Chinese leaders.
Plus "a statement published on [CCTV Sports'] Sina Weibo account on Tuesday" and the cancellation of NBA's China Games' broadcast [1].
Later, "Geng Shuang, a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry...said in a regular news briefing Tuesday that the NBA 'knows clearly what to say and what to do'" [2].
Spinning this as not coming from Xi's administration is absurd.
[1] https://www.scmp.com/sport/basketball/article/3031997/cctv-p...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-has-an-apology-playbook-t...
From the WSJ article, China has an apology playbook as incidents like this aren't rare. This isn't causing a political crisis like the poster said, and the practice predates Xi's reign.
Yes.
It would be one thing to do this behind closed doors. But the hamhandedness of it all resembles flailing more than a coherent strategy.
Is there a domestic nationalistic PR strategy this is playing into?