H&M faces a boycott. Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Nike, Converse
and Calvin Klein have lost their brand ambassadors. Burberry has had to give up
an online video game partnership.
اضافة اعلان
Western brands are suddenly feeling the wrath of the Chinese
consumer, the very shoppers who for years have clamored for their products and
paid them vast amounts of money. Egged on by the ruling Communist Party,
Chinese online activists are punishing foreign companies that have joined a
call to avoid using cotton produced in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, where
authorities are waging a broad campaign of repression against ethnic
minorities.
The sudden bout of rage lays bare the vulnerability of foreign
companies as tensions worsen between China and the United States and other
countries. US lawmakers in particular who have been increasingly critical of
China have pressured international companies to take a public stance on China’s
human rights practices, including in Xinjiang. That makes the companies
convenient targets for Chinese officials who are aggressively pushing back
against US officials.
“A lot of Western countries and China are pretty black-and-white
on this issue. There’s not a lot of gray,” said Trey McArver, a co-founder of
Trivium China, a consultancy that helps foreign businesses sell in China,
referring to the opposing stances over Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang. “You can’t
agree with both of them, so I don’t think it’s an easy answer.”
China has not said as much, but its campaign against these
brands began days after the United States and other Western countries imposed
fresh sanctions on top Chinese officials this week. These sought to punish
Beijing for abuses against the Uyghurs and other minorities, which have been
well documented by foreign media and rights groups. There is also growing
evidence that cotton from Xinjiang is linked to coercive labor programs and
mass internment of as many as one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other largely
Muslim minorities, the US government and rights groups say.
It isn’t clear what the long-term effect might be on Western
companies that depend on China to make or buy their products.There was still a
steady stream of shoppers at several popular H&M and Nike outlets in
Shanghai and Beijing. Previous state media-driven pressure campaigns against
companies like Apple, Starbucks and Volkswagen failed to dent Chinese demand
for their products.
Still, their position could become increasingly precarious as
Beijing looks for ways to counter the narrative. And it is no stranger to
flexing its economic muscle for political ends.
Years earlier, after South Korea embraced a US antimissile
defense system, the Chinese government fed anti-South Korean sentiment in the
country that forced Lotte Mart, a popular South Korean supermarket, to shut
many of its outlets. The missile system stayed, but Beijing was still able to
exact pain.
Such tactics have become a common feature of China’s
increasingly aggressive brand of diplomacy. Chinese diplomats routinely deploy
a mix of threats and nationalistic messages to browbeat Beijing’s critics and
assert the country’s interests.
“The Chinese people do not allow some foreign companies to eat
Chinese food and smash Chinese bowls,” Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman in Beijing, said.
Hua appeared to be playing on a phrase traced to Xi Jinping,
China’s top leader, who, in demanding loyalty to the party, said in 2014: “Never
allow eating the Communist Party’s food and then smashing the Communist Party’s
cooking pots.”
Chinese state media outlets have overtly stoked the outrage with
hashtags on social media and bold headlines. Government officials have sought
to depict the outcry as authentic, with a Commerce Ministry spokesman saying that
Chinese consumers were “hoping that the relevant companies would correct their
wrong practices.”
For decades, foreign companies operating in China have been
largely wary of appearing critical of the Chinese government. And in recent
years, several of them have been besieged by a growing army of nationalistic
online users, who have been ready to pounce on the three T’s: Tibet, Taiwan and
Tiananmen. All have been quick to apologize and emerged largely unscathed.
This time, the outrage is erupting against the backdrop of the
worst downturn in relations between China and the West in decades. As the Biden
administration pursues an alliance to curb China’s influence, Beijing,
emboldened by its success in curbing the coronavirus outbreak at home, is
pushing back hard against what it perceives as hypocrisy.
“It might get more heated,” Jörg Wuttke, the president of the
European Chamber of Commerce in China, said in an email. More European
companies are going to be caught between a rock and a hard place, he said. “Everybody
has to service their domestic crowd.”
H&M, the Swedish retailer, has borne the brunt of China’s
outrage.The Communist Youth League, an influential Communist Party
organization, and state media highlighted a statement that the company made
eight months ago setting out its concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang. That
prompted Chinese internet users to call for a boycott.
The company responded by saying its statement last year on
Xinjiang did not “represent any political position.” That made internet users,
who were baying for an apology, only more furious.
A mall in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, shut an H&M outlet,
urging the company to apologize formally to people in the region. In the
southwestern city of Chengdu, workers dismantled the company’s sign from a
store.
“I don’t expect this to die down,” said Surya Deva, an associate
professor at the City University of Hong Kong and a member of the UN working
group on business and human rights. “This is a different trajectory and a
different era.”
Justine Nolan, a professor in Sydney at the faculty of law and
justice at the University of New South Wales, said it was also an opportunity
for foreign companies to demonstrate their support for human rights.
“They are now being put to the test,” she added. “This is the
red line for them — and it’s not an issue that they can afford to be
halfhearted about.”
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