News and Commentary

Disney CEO Bob Iger Stays Silent On China Protests, Admits It Will Harm Profits

   DailyWire.com
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 22: Bob Iger attends the World Premiere of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures "Avengers: Endgame" at Los Angeles Convention Center on April 22, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Add Disney to the list of American corporations willing to bow to the Communist Party of China in order to make a quick buck.

Speaking at the WSJ Tech Live conference on Tuesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the company will be keeping silent on the Hong Kong protests, admitting that speaking out would harm the company’s bottom line. Iger’s precedent for this, of course, came from the backlash against the NBA when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protesters.

“What we learned in the last week — we’ve learned how complicated this is,” Iger said, as reported by Bloomberg. “The biggest learning from that is that caution is imperative. To take a position that could harm our company in some form would be a big mistake. I just don’t believe it’s something we should engage in in a public manner.”

Iger called it a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, even though he has shown himself to be more than willing to speak out on progressive political causes — such as when he said Disney would have to consider boycotting the state of Georgia for enacting a fetal heartbeat bill to protect unborn babies from abortion.

“I think many people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard,” Iger told Reuters earlier this year. “Right now, we are watching it very carefully. If [the bill] becomes law, I don’t see how it’s practical for us to continue to shoot there.”

Needless to say, Disney has a massive financial interest in China. According to LifeNews, the corporation “opened a $5.5 billion resort in Shanghai, China, in 2016,” partnering with the “state-owned media company, Shanghai Shendi Group, for the resort.” Bob Iger even referred to the resort as the company’s “greatest opportunity since buying land in Florida.”

A New York Times report in November of last year also said that China’s growing middle class is a “particularly important growth market for Disney.” This business was all conducted even as no less a leftist organization than Human Rights Watch itself reported that Chinese authorities interned nearly 13 million Muslims.

“Authorities dramatically stepped up repression and systematic abuses against the 13 million Turkic Muslims, including Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs, in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region,” reported Human Rights Watch. “Authorities have carried out mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of some of them in various detention facilities, and increasingly imposed pervasive controls on daily life.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) publicly blasted Iger for putting profits over human rights in China. “Sell your soul to save your profits’ is going to be a helluva plot line for ‘Frozen 2,'” said Sasse. “There are about a million Uyghurs in Chinese communist prisons who aren’t going to be visiting the Magic Kingdom anytime soon.”

Disney also stepped into a difficult controversy over the summer when the #BoycottMulan hashtag exploded on Twitter in response to the film’s star, Crystal Liu, openly expressing support for the Hong Kong police force in the wake of the widespread protests there.

“I support the Hong Kong police. You can all attack me now. What a shame for Hong Kong,” Liu said on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Disney CEO Bob Iger Stays Silent On China Protests, Admits It Will Harm Profits