NFL China retweeted the New England Patriots' star receiver Julian Edelman's invitation to Chinese fans to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday.

"Chinese fans, the most important game is now. We are Patritots!" Edelman's tweet said on Tuesday beneath a picture of himself in action, with the Chinese characters for "squirrel" (songshu), his nickname, superimposed on the image.

The Patriots will play the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI (51) in Houston on Sunday.

American pro football is heating up in China, and despite the 13-hour time difference (in Beijing), many Chinese will watch the game at hotels and other parties at 7:30 am Monday morning - and now for the first time, live online.

The NFL, which has partnered with Sina Weibo in recent weeks to live-stream NFL games, will also carry the big game (in Mandarin) on the social network.

"Sina Weibo is an excellent partner for the NFL as we engage fans across the Chinese mainland," said Richard Young, NFL China managing director. "We're confident this will be a valuable long-term partnership for the NFL and our sponsors in China."

Sina Weibo has an estimated 132 million daily users on its platform.

"We are glad to launch this strategic partnership with the NFL," Zhang Zhe, head of Sina Weibo Sports, said in December. "We look forward to helping the NFL grow their Chinese market and explore more commercial opportunities, while also providing our Weibo users with a better opportunity to watch and quickly share LIVE games and highlights."

The game also will be shown on Alisports, BesTV, Fox Sports, GDTV, LETV, PPTV (Digital), QQ (Digital), SMG and iQiYi.

The NFL said it has more than 1.5 million online viewers in China each week. Sina also has rights to non-game video-on-demand clips and highlights.

NFL China, which was established in Beijing in 2007, is attuned to the Chinese market. On Jan 27, it tweeted well wishes for a Happy New Year of the Rooster, with an image of the bird clutching a football.

On Dec 27, the NFL announced that Hong Kong singer and actor William Chan would be its ambassador in China, as well as attend the game. Chan has 20.3 million followers on Weibo.

In Chinese, Super Bowl is translated as chao ji wan, and the CCTV New Year gala is chun wan (gala of the

acceptable, but a BAT and also other trade measures aimed at China will provoke retaliation. China can also wait for a WTO (World Trade Organization) ruling on a BAT," Scissors said.

Hufbauer believes much of the Chinese government reaction will depend on the details of the final provisions. He suspects that the Chinese government is more likely to retaliate.

"If they retaliate, the question is how they retaliate," he said.

According to Hufbauer, China could launch a WTO case against the US; it could also impose countervailing duties on US exports, or it could do some unannounced retaliation such as shifting Chinese imports of US soybeans and planes to other sources.

He argued that most countries are unlikely to bring a case to the WTO, due to the lengthy and complicated process.

"One of these three or some of the combination is highly probable," he said of the possible Chinese reaction.

Lardy believes that countries will regard the BAT as an unfavorable initiative by the US. He warned that if some countries, especially a big one, do not care about rules in a global trading system, then the whole system runs the risk of breaking down.

williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com