BEIJING – Between Linsanity and Apple’s iPad trademark case, it seems like the only things on people’s minds in China right now are basketball and trademarks.

Leave it to “His Airness” to elevate that talk to another level.

Earlier today, NBA legend Michael Jordan issued a statement announcing that he has filed a lawsuit in Chinese court against Qiaodan Sports Company Ltd., charging the company with using his name and playing number without permission.

“A Chinese sports company has chosen to build a Chinese business off my Chinese name without my permission,” said Jordan in a video statement posted on a special website announcing the suit. "It pains me to see someone misrepresent my identity.”

“Qiaodan” is a transliteration of the name Jordan has gone by in China since he and the NBA took China by storm in the ‘80s and ‘90s, transforming the mainland into a nation of basketball diehards.

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“It is deeply disappointing to see a company build a business off my Chinese name without my permission, use the number 23 and even attempt to use the names of my children,” Jordan said, referring to Qiaodan’s recent bid to trademark the name of his children in China. He continued by saying, “I am taking this action to preserve ownership of my name and my brand.”

Jordan’s announcement is a blow to Qiaodan, a Chinese sportswear and footwear manufacturer that has its roots in the 1980s but found tremendous financial success when it changed its name to Jordan’s Chinese moniker in 2000.

Company: Lots of people named 'Jordan'
Since that time, Qiaodan has borrowed heavily from the Jordan mystique to drive sales in China. His iconic number 23 is on much of their sportswear and advertisements and equipment often sport a logo which greatly resembles Nike’s iconic “Jumpman” logo, which accompanies virtually all of Jordan’s branded gear.

Still, the company denies any connection to the NBA legend and argues any resemblance is coincidental.

Speaking to Chinese media today, a spokesman for the company brazenly claimed, “There is no connection, 23 is just a number like $23 or $230 dollars… I don’t think there is a problem at all here.”

He continued by saying Qiaodan goes to great lengths to advertise that the company was a “China national brand” and that there was no need to tell every customer that they are not associated with Jordan since their brand is already unique to the mainland.

“Not everyone will think this is misleading,” said the spokesman. “There are so many Jordans besides the basketball player – there are many other celebrities both in the U.S. and worldwide called Jordan.”

A bold claim by Qiaodan, but one that is seemingly refuted by a 2009 survey conducted by a Shanghai marketing company. They found that 90 percent of 400 young people polled in China’s small cities believed Qiaodan Sports was Michael Jordan’s own brand.

“We live in a competitive marketplace, and Chinese consumers, like anyone else, have a huge amount of choice when it comes to buying clothing, shoes and other merchandise,” said Jordan, “I think they deserve to know what they are buying.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Nike, who markets the “Jordan” brand in China under its English name, which the Oregon-based company registered in China in 1993. It failed, though, to register the Chinese name, allowing Qiaodan to take it in 1998. Attempts by Nike to legally halt Qiaodan from selling under that name were blocked by the Chinese government’s state trademark office 

Subsequently, one can walk into a sports store here in China and often find Nike’s official Jordan line of sportswear on sale just a few racks down from Qiaodan’s brand.

Why now?
In lieu of Nike’s previous experience in attempting to protect its trademark and the fact that Jordan himself has waited 11 years to make his first high profile attempt to stop Qiaodan, the question is: “Why now?”

The answer to that may be found in two recent legal decisions involving two other NBA players.

Stan Abrams of the invaluable China legal and business blog, China Hearsay, wrote about two cases involving Chinese basketball stars – Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming – and the parallels between their two trademark cases and the suit Jordan is bringing against Qiaodan.

In the Yi Jianlian case, a company unaffiliated with the player registered for the trademark of his name in 2005. Yi filed a complaint with the Chinese Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and won in 2009; he also won a subsequent appeal in 2010.

Yao Ming faced a similar issue when he filed suit and won against another Chinese sporting goods company, Wuhan Yunhe, which had attempted to trademark a name associated with the former NBA superstar.

In both cases, lawyers for the players cited Article 31 of Chinese Trademark Law which states: "An application for the registration of a trademark shall not create any prejudice to the prior right of another person, nor unfair means be used to pre-emptively register the trademark of some reputation another person has used.”

Perhaps seeing the trademark law now being more stringently enforced in cases closely paralleling his own, and already knowing the terrific economic potential for himself and his brand in China, Jordan must have seen this as the time to make a definitive move against Qiaodan.

Considering Nike’s failed injunction and the fact that Qiaodan is a purely homegrown Chinese company – a fact that should not be underestimated - Qiaodan must have appeared frustratingly untouchable to Jordan, who touched on fairness in his statement.

“When I was a former player, I played within the rules, I played off of honesty,” said Jordan. “Today, even in business, honesty is something that I truly, truly hold as a high value, and I stay within the guidelines.”

While the lawsuit is primarily for control of his Chinese name in China, Jordan has pledged that any money earned in the lawsuit will be “invested in growing the sport in China.”

“No one should lose control of their own name; China recognizes that for everyone. It’s not about the money; it’s about principle—protecting my identity and my name.”  

One person who should take heed of Jordan’s words? Current NBA phenom, Jeremy Lin, whose Chinese name was registered by a Chinese company back in 2010.

Watch Jordan's video statement

BEIJING — He means something to many people: Asian Americans, underdogs, geeks, Ivy Leaguers, sports fans, Christians, anyone who loves a great story.

But Jeremy Lin — the Harvard graduate of Chinese descent born in Palo Alto, California, to Taiwan parents — is not the same thing to all Chinese.

If ever there were one event that has the potential to show how fractured Chinese communities can be, "Linsanity" — or linfengkuang in Chinese — might be it.

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For days now, we in Beijing have been fielding emails from our U.S. colleagues: “Hey, we hear Lin’s big in China now?  He’s on the cover of the New York Post!”  “The NY Knicks player is having a Cinderella week… he’s being noticed/watched in China….”

For the record, yes, he’s big in mainland China. 

It’s been widely reported that his Sina Weibo account (a popular Chinese version of Twitter) clocked more than a million followers as he led the Knicks to victory over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday — more than doubling the number he had the night he faced off with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers last Friday.

Perfect storm continues for Jeremy Lin

On Taobao, China’s leading e-commerce site, shoppers can buy copies of Lin’s Knicks jersey and t-shirts and sweatshirts bearing his number “17.”  A quick look suggests the merchandise isn’t moving as briskly as Weibo messages about the athlete, but it’s an impressive range of goods nonetheless.  In the brick and mortar world, however, his jersey — even counterfeit versions — is said to be selling out.

But mainland China is also very big.

Let’s go back to Weibo.  Lin’s following, large as it sounds, is still just a fraction of some high-profile mainland Chinese.  Pan Shiyi — a Beijing-based property mogul some people liken to Donald Trump — has 8.6 million followers.  Hong Huang — a publisher and commentator who is often described as the "Oprah of China" — has four million.  Lee Kai-fu, the former head of Google China, has 11 million.

The comparisons may be unfair since none of these Chinese are athletes and all have had profiles on Weibo for longer.  But high-profile mainland athletes like Yao Ming, Guo Jingjing (the glamorous Olympic gold-medallist female diver), Liu Xiang (the Olympic gold-medallist hurdler) don’t have a presence on Weibo.  Only Yi Jianlian has a profile; the mainland Chinese NBA athlete who plays for the Dallas Mavericks has 6.5 million followers.

In the offline world, Lin’s name is not on everyone’s lips the way it seems in the U.S.  It’s not perfect evidence, but a random sampling of Beijing taxi drivers, normally glued to radio news, this morning came up blank.  “We only know Yao Ming,” said one cabbie.

PhotoBlog: Lin leads Knicks to 7th win in a row

There’s been steady speculation about why China’s state-run media has been muted with its reporting on the Lin phenomenon and why CCTV — normally awash with NBA coverage — has not been broadcasting his games.  (New York City Time Warner subscribers, we share your pain.)

 “Mr Lin is a trickier fit for Beijing’s propagandists,” one Western report noted.  “His 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.”

Lin’s success has also raised the inevitable and perhaps unwelcome question (at least in the mainland) “Could China, an Olympic powerhouse and homeland of Yao Ming, produce such a gifted, confident point guard?”  As the journalist pointed out, not for now.  Not given the state-run sports industry or its rigid approach to training and talent-spotting. 

China's president-in-waiting returns to Iowa

Then, of course, there’s the fact Lin’s parents come from Taiwan, which has engaged in a fractious rivalry with mainland China for nearly 70 years.  Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province while the latter regards itself an independent nation.

Tug o’ war over the favorite son
Over the weekend, folks in China’s Zhejiang Province, the ancestral home of the athlete’s maternal grandmother, laid claim to him.   And today, a local newspaper re-posted photos from Lin’s visit to his mother’s hometown last May. 

The accompanying article opens with the following lines: “Lin Shuhao became famous overnight.  But what we here are more proud of is his roots here in Pinghu.”  It concludes with a quote from Lin’s mother saying the family might return to Pinghu again this summer.

The media in Taiwan — which has hailed Lin as one of their own — have taken notice.  Local newspapers on the island today went on a blitzkrieg to assert Lin’s Taiwan identity, quoting family relatives, and also claimed Lin might visit the island this summer.  The coverage followed a report in the New York Times, which quoted Lin’s uncle in Taiwan as saying about the Knicks player and his parents, “For sure, they are Taiwanese.”

Since Lin’s debut for the Knicks on February 4^th, Taiwan’s local media have given the overnight sensation blanket coverage, and there has been no problem catching any of his games live on television.  “They’re broadcast live in the morning,” one of my uncles who has spent the past month in Taipei told me.  “And then they’re shown twice again later in the day.  And every newscast has packaged highlights of every game.”

And, yet, something still seems to ring hollow about the mainland's or Taiwan's scramble to call Lin one of their own.  One of the mainland Chinese readers who responded to the local Zhejiang newspaper report put it succinctly: "He's American.  You should be ashamed of yourself trying to dig up his maternal ancestral grave."  In fact, many Chinese--in dismissing comparisons between Lin and Yao Ming--have argued that Lin is distinctly American, has nothing to do with China, and didn't experience the cultural and language adjustment that Yao underwent when he moved to the U.S. to play in the NBA.

But then there are the American-born Chinese (ABCs).

'A watershed moment'
Judging by the flood of columns by Chinese-American commentators, Lin’s success means more to this cohort than any other community:

Eric Liu: “[The Knicks fans’] embrace of Lin has made millions of Asian Americans feel vicariously, thrillingly embraced. Not invisible. Not presumed foreign. Just part of the team, belonging in the game. It’s felt like a breakout moment: for Lin, for Asian America and, thus, for America.”

Jeff Yang: “It’s hard not to feel like this isn’t a watershed moment. Hard not to feel like this is historic. Hard not to think that we’re at the cusp of an actual tectonic shift in the culture, when an Asian American “kid” could be the unquestioned king of one of the most storied franchises in sports, the guy that every guy in the room wishes he could meet and every kid in the room wants to group up to be.”

Ling Woo Liu: “For those who've been following the campaign ad controversies as well as the [Harry] Lew and [Danny] Chen cases, Lin's meteoric rise has been a much-needed sign of hope.

Bryan Chu: “Some might say, why didn’t Yao Ming evoke this type of emotion in you?  The difference is that Jeremy is one of us. He was born in the U.S. He was that kid who got straight A’s in school. He was the one that worked at his high school student newspaper. He has a bit of an Americanized accent when he speaks Mandarin. He had a pipe dream of making it to the NBA. He’s humble and sometimes misperceived as a shy, Asian kid who shows flashes of brilliance and then finally explodes on the scene when he’s given a chance. He’s the guy friend who, if he needs a place to crash, will be thankful for a couch.”

With additional reporting by Bo Gu.

 

BEIJING – The memory of last week's Georgetown/Bayi brawl was definitely back of mind for fans and the large media contingent attending Monday night’s final game between Duke University and China’s Olympic basketball team.

But no punches were thrown at this game. Instead it ended with applause and cheers of appreciative fans who were awed by the high-wire dunks and athleticism of the Blue Devils and by the tenacity of a Chinese side that battled back from a 28-6 deficit in the first quarter to pull within three points early in the third quarter.

Duke’s 93-78 victory was surely what tour organizers had been hoping for when they green-lighted this trip. In a nod to the events of last week, security was beefed up throughout the arena, with tighter security protocols – including bottles and lighters being confiscated outside the arena while concession stands poured cans of beer and soft drinks into paper cups for customers.

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Both steps were taken to prevent the hurling of bottles and lighters onto the court or at players, which one sports blogger here in Beijing called “par for course” at China Basketball Association (CBA) games.  

Stern-looking ushers and security guards in white short-sleeved shirts and black pants replaced the standard “mall-cop” security at games. Jon Pastuszek, who writes about Chinese basketball in his NiuBBall blog, described the usual security detail as “boys lacking in training and a fundamental understanding of what their job as security is supposed to be.”  While the security was noticeably more confident than what appeared present at the Georgetown brawl, they certainly did not cast a pall on the event and in fact seemed to blend into the crowd.

Despite the enhanced precautions, however, Pastuszek – who frequently attends CBA games – believes that the security at the Duke game was not typical of games in China. “I would say the level of security at the Georgetown/Bayi games was more consistent with CBA security than last night’s Duke game,” said Pastuszek.

Pastuszek said that he was surprised soda and beer was sold at the game – because they usually don’t allow sales from concession stands at official CBA games. He added that the Mastercard arena, where the game was played, is not managed by the same organization as most professional Chinese games, so they were allowed to sell drinks.

The crowd's energy throughout the game was excited and cheery, a mood hammered home by the eclectic soundtrack constantly piped in – apparently a CBA hallmark – over the game. It ranged from peppy Top 40 hits to rockabilly to techno versions of “If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands....”

Questionable officiating?
It was probably for the best that the music drowned out the noise of the game, as it likely sheltered the crowd from the periodic outbursts of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski who at times appeared unhappy with the officiating.

His frustration was particularly noticeable during a series of events during the final minute of the first half. Coming out of a timeout with 59 seconds left in the half, Duke’s players took to the court while China’s remained in a huddle long after the horn to restart play had blown.

With a lull in the music, Coach K could be seen animatedly gesturing at the referees while yelling, “Come on! Come on! That’s not right!”

Later, following a Duke offensive turnover from a questionable non-call that led to a critical basket from China to bring the score to 40-49 with less than 30 seconds in the first half, timeout was called, and Coach K had to be physically pulled away by an assistant as he yelled at a ref. 

By halftime, the free-throw disparity between the two teams was striking: Duke 6-8, China 18-27. As both teams left the court, Coach K could be seen having a hard talk with the referees before storming off to the locker room, muttering under his breath and wearing a disgusted face.

“When the score gets a little out of control, and there are three Chinese refs in the game, they are going to want to keep the game closer,” said Pastuszek, who was at Monday night's game. Indeed, there were numerous moments in the second and third quarter when it seemed timely calls and hard luck fouls seemed to go against Duke.  To the credit of the players from both teams, both expressed their frustration at the officiating but never took it beyond an exasperated look or a clap of the hands.

A local sports journalist at the game said that the referees for that night were registered with an international referees' organization and thus spoke English.  This was certainly a far cry from the past two games Duke played as well as the Georgetown/Bayi match, where the refs allegedly did not speak English and ignored the frustrated castigations of the two university coaches.

As one Duke fan sarcastically noted on a live chat during the game, “Duke fouling much less in this game. Obviously K finally got some English speaking referees.”

Through the three games Duke played in China, the Blue Devils were called for 85 fouls to the 55 called against the Chinese sides.  Despite the questionable disparity in calls, Coach K was gracious in a joint post-game press conference with the Chinese coach, saying he felt that the Chinese side had been hospitable throughout their entire stay here and speaking bullishly of China’s strong basketball future.

BEIJING – In preparation for their tour to China this week, players from Georgetown’s basketball team participated in an orientation program with officials from the U.S. State Department to prepare them for the ambassadorial role they would play.

Ping Pong Diplomacy this was not.

The now widespread video of the bench-clearing brawl that erupted during a “goodwill game” between the Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets, a China Basketball Association (CBA) team, has generated widespread outrage and buzz on both sides of the Pacific, though Chinese media coverage has been scrubbed away on the Internet due to the embarrassing circumstances.

That the free-for-all occurred during a high-profile visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and thus was an important diplomatic side event for the Chinese hosts makes the whole event all the more startling.

So why did this brawl happen? Reports from those in the stands and conversations with those who closely follow the CBA suggest a confluence of decisions and circumstances that made Thursday’s friendly match primed for some sort of altercation.

Perhaps key to this was the decision to play Bayi in the first place.

Much has been written about the fact that Bayi is a team that represents the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But while the players are indeed representatives of the army and hold military ranks, it is unlikely that any of them have done serious field training, but rather were recruited specifically for their basketball acumen.

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For example, Wang Zhizhi – the first Chinese athlete to play in the NBA – competed for the Bayi Rockets for several seasons, but unless you count the seven CBA Championships he won with Bayi, his active military service seems limited at best.

“There are regular pictures of Wang Zhizhi doing his compulsory annual training,” said Maggie Rauch, editor of China Sports Today, “It’s done, but I don’t know if they go through anything like the training a regular soldier does.”

Nevertheless, Bayi’s military background – the team was founded by members of the PLA – has deeply influenced their style of play, translating into an aggressive, attacking defensive game that often overpowers opponents. The results of such a style speak for themselves: 34 national titles and a Yankees-esque eight wins in 16 CBA championships.

“It’s a big honor to play for Bayi, that and the national team,” said Rauch. “It’s not as big of a deal now since they aren’t winning as much, but it’s still a big deal to be selected to play for them.”

Great legacy and national pride
However, with this national reputation for success comes a strong desire to protect the winning legacy. Jon Pastuszek is a Beijing-based writer who covers the CBA and the Chinese basketball industry on his website, NiuBBall. He noted that player recruitment at early ages, as well as limited education and exposure to foreign players – Bayi is the only CBA team that does not sign foreign players to play for them – may have contributed to a conflation of winning and national pride. 

“They represent the People’s Liberation Army. There are no foreigners on this team, so I think that the team is a bit more nationalistic than maybe other teams are,” said Pastuszek, “[Bayi] are maybe more prone to protect their country and maybe they feel threatened to kind of aggressively attack, if you will.”

That aggression manifested itself in yesterday’s game. Sarah E. Burton, an American living in China for five years, was at the game sitting between the two bench areas of the stands with predominantly Chinese fans. She described a friendly, excited atmosphere amongst the fans, but a very different vibe on the court.

“I think what was surprising to me was that from the very beginning of the game, the Chinese team played a very, very aggressive, defensive game,” said Burton, “In fact I would describe it as streetball.”

“I think at first it surprised the Georgetown players and then it agitated them,” she added.

To Burton, however, things appeared to take a turn for the worse when one of the Bayi players had words with Georgetown coach, John Thompson III.

“One of the most shocking things that I saw last night was one of the more hot headed members of the Chinese basketball team, number 24, approached the Hoyas coach and said in English, he yelled at the Hoyas coach in English and said, ‘Is this how you let your players play?’”

The shocking disrespect of an opposing player chewing out a visiting coach during a goodwill game aside, the comment is all the more surprising coming from a player representing a military team and thus one who necessarily understands and respects hierarchy.

CBA team, CBA officiating, but no CBA security
The scene for the brawl was further set by officiating that seemed heavily biased against Georgetown. In what has been described by all accounts as a physical game played by both sides, the amount of free throws – in other words the amount of fouls called against Georgetown – was stacked heavily in Bayi’s favor, with the Rockets shooting 57 free throws to just 15 for the Hoyas.

“There was more fouling then I’ve ever seen in any basketball game I’ve attended in China,” said Burton.

The disparity in foul calls was not unexpected.

“China’s referees do not have a very good reputation, even amongst the league itself,” said Pastuszek, “There have been a lot of reports of corruption and various scandals… But what you see especially at international competitions is a very large bias from the Chinese refs to the Chinese teams. I think they probably feel that it reflects poorly on China if they lose badly or if they lose by a lot so they call more fouls to keep the game even.”

“This isn’t the first time that it happened amongst universities, but this is the first time it has led to an escalation like this,” he added.

Though Georgetown coaches had probably prepared its players for a one-sided officiated game, the obvious home court advantage paired with an aggressive game plan from Bayi probably caught the Hoyas off-guard. After all, the players are here for a goodwill exhibition, not a physical defensive battle.

“I’ve spent some time with these teams, for [traveling university teams] it’s about visiting China, having an experience they’ve never had before,” said Rauch. “It’s only slightly about basketball. It’s more about promoting their university and representing their country.”

“They don’t come here thinking if you don’t come here without a ‘W’ [win], it’s a disgrace. It’s about going out, playing hard and playing together,” she continued.

The end for collegiate goodwill games?
The Georgetown-Bayi brawl could be seen as a strong disincentive for many NBA stars who have already expressed interest in coming to China to play if the ongoing NBA lockout continues. However, many suggest the real loser will be future collegiate trips for so-called “goodwill games.”

Just this year alone, basketball teams from Yale, University of Hawaii, Duke and Georgetown have travelled to China to play exhibition games. While victory in these games is a matter of pride for the players, the real winners are the American universities eager to tap into the academic and (potential) athletic promise of China’s youth.

Whether university teams will continue to decide to come to China to play friendly matches remains to be seen, but this will almost certainly be a thorny issue for any college athletic director in light of yesterday’s scuffle. Pastuszek believes that schools will need to think twice about sending teams abroad to China: “I think what you are going to see is universities be a little bit more hesitant to use this model in the future to promote their universities.”

For Georgetown at least, the tour will continue, but a Hong Kong TV report now says, it will be an abbreviated schedule in which a second match against Bayi in Shanghai has been canceled. However, players and coaches from both teams met today and according to a report on the Georgetown website, amicably discussed future exchanges between the two teams.

The announcement would seemingly stave off an inglorious end to a basketball connection that goes back to 1978 when China sent its basketball team to the United States to play its first game there against none other than Georgetown University.

Silver Siwei Wang contributed research to this report

Hoyas, Chinese try to make up after brawl