On the one hand, as the pandemic continues to roil global retail, consumers have become more attuned to who makes their clothes and how they are treated, putting pressure on brands to put their values where their products are. The issue has growing political and economic implications. Īlso at The New York Times, in a “user’s guide” to the Chinese movement to cancel Western fashion brands, Vanessa Friedman and Elizabeth Paton highlight the importance of the issue: In these moments of mass fervor, it can be hard to say where official propaganda ends and opportunistic profit seeking begins. Others, such as the traffic-hungry blog accounts derided in China as “marketing accounts,” are probably more pragmatic. Many web users who speak up during such campaigns are motivated by genuine patriotism, even if China’s government does pay some people to post party-line comments. A user in Beijing who posts about television stars highlighted entertainers who had ended their contracts with Adidas and other targeted brands. A gadget blogger in Chengdu with 1.4 million followers shared a clip showing a worker removing an H&M sign from a mall. Squirrel Video, a Weibo account dedicated to silly videos, shared the Communist Youth League’s original post on H&M with its 10 million followers. But “their ability to control it is getting better,” he said. “The hate-fest part is not sophisticated it’s the same logic they’ve followed going back decades,” said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of China Digital Times, a website that tracks Chinese internet controls. Prior to H&M’s now-deleted October statement, the BCI last year suspended activities in Xinjiang over “persistent allegations of forced labour and human rights abuses.”Īt The New York Times, Raymond Zhong and Paul Mozur recalled last week’s state-fostered show of anger against the brands, noting it as an example of Beijing’s increasing ability to “whip up storms of patriotic anger to punish companies” that challenge Beijing’s politics with the help of Chinese social media influencers: H&M is a member of the nonprofit governance group the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), and is one of many western brands to be targeted in the storm for membership in the organization. issued a complete import ban on cotton and tomatoes from the region. Up to 20% of the world’s cotton supply comes from Xinjiang. London-based Burberry said last year that it did not use any raw materials from Xinjiang, where Beijing denies claims of genocide and forced labour in the region. Tencent’s decision, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, was related to Burberry’s position on Xinjiang-produced cotton as a member of the Better Cotton Initiative. Thursday, internet giant Tencent removed two Burberry-designed “skins”, outfits worn by video game characters, from its popular title Honour of Kings, just days after it unveiled a deal with the brand to promote its outfits in online games. Further, H&M products were blocked for purchase on China’s leading e-commerce platforms including Taobao, owned by Alibaba Group Holding (owner of the Post), JD.com, and Pinduoduo. Users were also not able to find H&M stores as destinations on China’s major online maps including Baidu, Tencent and AutoNavi maps. Hailing a car with an H&M store as the destination was not possible on ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, which did not recognise the store address as being valid. On Friday morning, an order placed for food to be delivered to an H&M store was denied by on-demand service giant Meituan. CDT Chinese editors found tight control of search results and social media commentary surrounding H&M and Xinjiang.Īt the South China Morning Post, Celia Chen and Iris Deng reported on the role played by Chinese e-commerce firms’ in the boycott: Meanwhile, authorities and state media played their part in fanning the flames of outrage. In reaction to the global tide of companies pledging to do their part in mitigating ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang-atrocities that the Chinese government continues to deny despite a growing body of evidence-many Chinese brands and influential figures joined nationalistic netizens in an online “support Xinjiang cotton” movement. Subsequently, several Chinese celebrities and companies announced plans to terminate contracts with the brands. The Swedish retailer was the first and primary focus of the online rage, but other major companies who had previously made statements about ceasing use of Xinjiang cotton-including Nike, Adidas, Burberry, and Uniqlo-were also targeted by online ire. Multinational clothing retailer H&M last week found itself the target of a state-sponsored storm of nationalistic scorn and a widespread boycott by Chinese consumers over a ( recently deleted) October 2020 statement expressing “deep concern” about persistent allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang.
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