Sen. Josh Hawley Tuesday accused the National Basketball Association and Apple of becoming part of China's propaganda push and urged them to have some independence rather than allowing themselves to be used in exchange for increasing their own profits.
"Have a little independence," the Missouri Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "This is Beijing plays ball. They tighten the screws. Now they want to censor Americans."
He said that his word to the NBA to not "become part of the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda arm," and that he'd say the same thing to Apple.
"I see Tim Cook now is going to join the board of a Chinese state-run university," said Hawley. "I hope he's going to be teaching on human rights in Tiananmen Square. It's time for some of these multinational corporations to get a little backbone."
The senator also discussed the Hong Kong protests and noted that President Donald Trump has helped keep Beijing in check by increasing pressure on trade.
"We're not just going to watch Hong Kong get steamrolled, because next it will be Taiwan and then it will be the region," said Hawley. "We know what China wants to ultimately do, is shut us out of the region and take away all of our jobs and our ability to trade."
He noted he traveled last week to Hong Kong, and that Americans should know about what the Chinese government is capable of doing, after seeing the violent crackdowns on Hong Kong.
"They won't grant protest permits," he said. "They're using violent tactics, brutal tactics, to disperse the protesters. They won't submit to a right to vote. Hong Kong is becoming a police state and that's bad news for us."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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