Chinese officials steal Shaq’s gifts from earthquake victims
This is not what you call good P.R.: The fate of four signed basketballs given by NBA great Shaquille O’Neal to Sichuan earthquake survivors sparked an Internet storm in China this week. The 15-times All Star doled out the balls to four children on Tuesday when he was visiting a school in Mianyang, the city ...
This is not what you call good P.R.:
This is not what you call good P.R.:
The fate of four signed basketballs given by NBA great Shaquille O’Neal to Sichuan earthquake survivors sparked an Internet storm in China this week.
The 15-times All Star doled out the balls to four children on Tuesday when he was visiting a school in Mianyang, the city worst affected by the earthquake which killed more than 80,000 people last year.
The boys were devastated when the balls were subsequently confiscated by school staff and China’s increasingly assertive Internet community rallied to their cause.[…]
O’Neal, who is hugely popular in basketball-mad China, later dispatched replacement balls to the students.
“I never thought it would be like this. I can imagine how disappointed the boys must be,” O’Neal told the paper.
If these officials had ever played Shaq Fu on SNES they would know what happens when you get between Shaq and his charity work.
Joshua Keating is a former associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
More from Foreign Policy

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak
Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage
The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine
The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

The Masterminds
Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.