Beijing’s Global Cancel Culture China punishes H&M and Nike for criticizing forced labor in Xinjiang.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijings-global-cancel-culture-11616711966?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
Xi Jinping has become something of a master at flexing China’s commercial muscle in political disputes with foreign critics. The Chinese President’s latest targets are Swedish t-shirts and American sports shoes, among others—and by extension Chinese consumers.
Fast-fashion retailer H&M and Nike came in for a Chinese social-media bruising this week. H&M saw its products removed from several major e-commerce retailers and a celebrity endorser abandoned the brand, while other celebrities cut ties with Nike as netizens rained scorn on the brands on sites such as Weibo. This followed angry social-media posts from the Communist Youth League aimed at the companies.
The companies’ offense is to have issued statements last year decrying forced labor in the concentration camps Beijing operates to imprison Uighurs in Xinjiang. That western Chinese region produces a lot of cotton, and fashion companies have been under pressure from their Western consumers to weed forced-labor fabrics from their supply chains.
Those statements are becoming grist for the Communist Party’s outrage mill now because the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom and European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on several Chinese officials in response to Mr. Xi’s Uighur imprisonment. Beijing has imposed sanctions on several European officials in response. Mobilizing an electronic mob against big Western brands is another show of force.
The threat is serious for any Western company that finds itself in the crosshairs. The National Basketball Association was banned for a year after a team executive tweeted in 2019 in support of Hong Kongers protesting for democracy. Australian companies are grappling with tariffs and boycotts imposed on products such as wine and barley after Canberra last year called for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
Mr. Xi doesn’t seem to mind that he is depriving the Chinese middle class of foreign goods and services they obviously like. Greater China is H&M’s fourth-largest market by revenue (first is Germany). Mr. Xi is banking that nationalism, which the government plays up at every opportunity, will triumph over consumer choice.
The Communist Party strategy is to use China’s market power as leverage to shut down critics anywhere in the world. This includes companies, university scholars, journalists and governments. China will continue these commercial beatings until they no longer work.
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