Steph Curry just signed a 10-year deal with Li-Ning and called it "the partnership of a lifetime." Let's talk about what Li-Ning's lifetime actually looks like.
In 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection banned every single Li-Ning product from entering the United States — not as a trade dispute, but because federal investigators concluded the company was using North Korean forced labor in its supply chain. That same year, Norway's sovereign wealth fund — the largest in the world at $1.3 trillion — dumped its entire stake in Li-Ning, citing what it called an "unacceptable risk that the company contributes to serious human rights violations" tied to Xinjiang. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute named Li-Ning in a report identifying companies directly benefiting from Uyghur forced labor transfer programs. The bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China investigated Li-Ning's supply chain and formally urged NBA players to walk away from their endorsement deals with the company. And through all of it, Li-Ning publicly declared it uses Xinjiang cotton and intends to keep using it.
That's the company Steph Curry just handed his name and his legacy to for the next decade.
This isn't about geopolitics or asking an athlete to be a diplomat. It's about a man who has spent twenty years carefully constructing an image built on faith, integrity, and doing the right thing — and then signing with a company that U.S. federal investigators concluded was built, in part, on slave labor. The Congressional commission that investigated Li-Ning specifically called out NBA players by name and asked them to walk away. Curry didn't walk away. He ran toward them with a ten-year contract.
"Partnership of a lifetime," Steph. For Li-Ning, that's exactly right. Somebody else's lifetime. Somebody who never got a choice about it.
North Korean forced labor — U.S. Customs ban: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/03/16/Li-Ning-China-ban-North-Korean-labor-customs-imports/4921647427576/
Xinjiang forced labor + Norway sovereign wealth fund divestment: https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/labor/li-ning-customs-border-protection-forced-labor-north-korea-xinjiang-334944/
Congressional pressure on NBA players to drop Li-Ning: https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/labor/li-ning-sporting-goods-north-korean-forced-labor-cbp-norges-334205/
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