China is backing down from NBA protest.

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BEIJING — After three days of fanning nationalistic outrage, the Chinese government abruptly moved on Thursday to tamp down public anger at the N.B.A. as concerns spread in Beijing that the rhetoric was damaging China’s interests and image around the world.

For days, China’s state-run news outlets and tightly controlled social media platforms had been alight with criticism of the N.B.A. after a Houston Rockets executive expressed support for Hong Kong’s antigovernment protesters on Twitter. Plans to broadcast two N.B.A. preseason games were canceled and some Chinese companies suspended partnerships with the league.

Now, the Chinese government appears to be reassessing its campaign against the N.B.A. and dialing down the clamor. The government is already in a bruising trade war with the United States, and a backlash against China could hurt its image in the sporting world ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics near Beijing. The dispute with the N.B.A. was also quickly politicizing an audience of sports fans who would not normally focus on issues like the protests in Hong Kong.

Editors at state news outlets have told reporters to avoid emphasizing the N.B.A. issue for fear that it might become overheated, according to interviews with three journalists on Thursday.

The controversy soon fell off the government-guided list of top 10 trending topics on Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like microblogging service.

The authorities did not cancel Thursday’s preseason N.B.A. game in Shanghai.

And even the highly nationalistic Global Times tabloid stopped pushing populist indignation over the tweet.

The protests may cause high-profile athletes and their fans around the world to pay attention to the Hong Kong protests for the first time, and their sympathies might lie with the protesters instead of Beijing, one of the two people said.

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