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Chinese censors face 'Lin-sanity' conundrum
China is facing a conundrum over the "Lin-sanity" phenomenon that is sweeping the world of basketball with the sensational rise of Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks player.
Mr Lin, 23, has gone from obscurity to the world's most-watched basketball star in under a week. His story – an unwanted player who shines when given a chance – has the right mix of adversity and success to captivate the US, but it poses a problem for the media in basketball-mad China.
In mainland China, the US star's following on Weibo, the Twitter-like microblog, has exploded to more than a million fans. But official Chinese media have been notably quiet. While this is partly owing to the typical slow response of the hulking state-run media, there are signs that his Taiwanese background and devout Christianity sit uncomfortably with government censors.
On Wednesday morning in Beijing, China Central Television, the sports channel of CCTV, the national broadcaster, ran a taped Champions League football match as scheduled instead of switching to a live broadcast of Mr Lin steering the Knicks to victory with a last-gasp "three-point" basket.
Chinese basketball fans have been asking why CCTV has not shown Mr Lin's games. Online forums are awash with speculation that the Taiwanese flags waved by some of his fans are the impediment. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and rejects any displays of Taiwanese independence.
While the theory has holes – CCTV had few qualms about covering Taiwan's presidential election last month, when the flag appeared regularly – there is no question that Mr Lin is a trickier fit for Beijing's propagandists than Yao Ming, the mainland Chinese basketball star who retired last year.
Mr Yao has been appointed to a governmental advisory body in Shanghai, his home town, and also owns the Shanghai franchise in the China Basketball Association. By contrast, Mr Lin, a Harvard graduate, was reported to have turned down Mr Yao's offer to play in Shanghai before he burst on to the scene in New York.
Mr Lin's Christianity is perhaps more awkward for China's atheist Communist rulers. While Beijing officially sanctions some churches, it frowns on the spontaneous professions of love for God that pepper Mr Lin's postgame comments.
Evidence of how state censors would like to play down his religion came in a CCTV news report when he was named a National Basketball Association player of the week on Monday. "I love the fact that he gave praise to his team and to God," said one New Yorker interviewed in English.
But the Chinese subtitles translated his comments simply as "I love him for praising his team", scrubbing out the religious reference.
In contrast, there has been almost wall-to-wall coverage of Jeremy Lin in Taiwan, where he has prominently featured on the front page of Taiwanese newspapers, and has headlined nightly television news reports, after every game.
Even Sean Chen, Taiwan's premier, and President Ma Ying-jeou have followed his exploits. Mr Ma met Mr Lin in Taiwan when he first got into the NBA two years ago, and Mr Ma's aides said this week that the president still recalled that meeting.
"I couldn't see back then that he had such explosiveness," Mr Ma said, according to his aides.
While Mr Lin grew up in the US, the island's media have been quick to emphasise his Taiwanese heritage by calling him "the pride of Taiwan", a term they have also applied to baseball pitcher Wang Chien-ming, and Yanni Tseng, the world's top woman golfer.
In Mr Lin's ancestral home in Changhua, in central Taiwan, his grandmother and other relatives have been following his games on television. "I didn't understand basketball at all before but now I'm watching it every day," Mr Lin's grandmother told television reporters.
However, his grandmother was originally from Pinghu, a small coastal town in Zhejiang, a Chinese province where one high-ranking Communist official was not shying away from Mr Lin. Cai Qi congratulated Mr Lin in his microblog on Sunday, and claimed him as Chinese.
Chinese censors face ‘Lin-sanity’ conundrum - FT.com
China is facing a conundrum over the "Lin-sanity" phenomenon that is sweeping the world of basketball with the sensational rise of Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks player.
Mr Lin, 23, has gone from obscurity to the world's most-watched basketball star in under a week. His story – an unwanted player who shines when given a chance – has the right mix of adversity and success to captivate the US, but it poses a problem for the media in basketball-mad China.
In mainland China, the US star's following on Weibo, the Twitter-like microblog, has exploded to more than a million fans. But official Chinese media have been notably quiet. While this is partly owing to the typical slow response of the hulking state-run media, there are signs that his Taiwanese background and devout Christianity sit uncomfortably with government censors.
On Wednesday morning in Beijing, China Central Television, the sports channel of CCTV, the national broadcaster, ran a taped Champions League football match as scheduled instead of switching to a live broadcast of Mr Lin steering the Knicks to victory with a last-gasp "three-point" basket.
Chinese basketball fans have been asking why CCTV has not shown Mr Lin's games. Online forums are awash with speculation that the Taiwanese flags waved by some of his fans are the impediment. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and rejects any displays of Taiwanese independence.
While the theory has holes – CCTV had few qualms about covering Taiwan's presidential election last month, when the flag appeared regularly – there is no question that Mr Lin is a trickier fit for Beijing's propagandists than Yao Ming, the mainland Chinese basketball star who retired last year.
Mr Yao has been appointed to a governmental advisory body in Shanghai, his home town, and also owns the Shanghai franchise in the China Basketball Association. By contrast, Mr Lin, a Harvard graduate, was reported to have turned down Mr Yao's offer to play in Shanghai before he burst on to the scene in New York.
Mr Lin's Christianity is perhaps more awkward for China's atheist Communist rulers. While Beijing officially sanctions some churches, it frowns on the spontaneous professions of love for God that pepper Mr Lin's postgame comments.
Evidence of how state censors would like to play down his religion came in a CCTV news report when he was named a National Basketball Association player of the week on Monday. "I love the fact that he gave praise to his team and to God," said one New Yorker interviewed in English.
But the Chinese subtitles translated his comments simply as "I love him for praising his team", scrubbing out the religious reference.
In contrast, there has been almost wall-to-wall coverage of Jeremy Lin in Taiwan, where he has prominently featured on the front page of Taiwanese newspapers, and has headlined nightly television news reports, after every game.
Even Sean Chen, Taiwan's premier, and President Ma Ying-jeou have followed his exploits. Mr Ma met Mr Lin in Taiwan when he first got into the NBA two years ago, and Mr Ma's aides said this week that the president still recalled that meeting.
"I couldn't see back then that he had such explosiveness," Mr Ma said, according to his aides.
While Mr Lin grew up in the US, the island's media have been quick to emphasise his Taiwanese heritage by calling him "the pride of Taiwan", a term they have also applied to baseball pitcher Wang Chien-ming, and Yanni Tseng, the world's top woman golfer.
In Mr Lin's ancestral home in Changhua, in central Taiwan, his grandmother and other relatives have been following his games on television. "I didn't understand basketball at all before but now I'm watching it every day," Mr Lin's grandmother told television reporters.
However, his grandmother was originally from Pinghu, a small coastal town in Zhejiang, a Chinese province where one high-ranking Communist official was not shying away from Mr Lin. Cai Qi congratulated Mr Lin in his microblog on Sunday, and claimed him as Chinese.
Chinese censors face ‘Lin-sanity’ conundrum - FT.com
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