Chinese farmers pick cotton in a field in Hami, Xinjiang region.
During the U.S.-China talks in Alaska, Yang Jiechi, director of the Chinese Communist Party‘s Foreign Affairs Office, said, “The Chinese don’t eat this! On March 24, the official media of the Communist Party of China rehashed the statement of the Swedish clothing brand H&M, which refused to use cotton from Xinjiang, and blasted H&M for “not eating the cotton from Xinjiang”.
During a March 18 meeting between senior U.S. and Chinese officials, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, lashed out at U.S. officials, criticizing U.S. democracy, human rights and values, and objecting to U.S. criticism of the Chinese Communist regime on the issues of Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Yang Jiechi said “”You [the United States] are not qualified to say in front of China that you talk to China from a position of strength” because “the Chinese do not eat this.
The phrase “the Chinese don’t eat this” quickly became a widely reported and quoted headline in the official media of the Communist Party of China, and was greatly appreciated by the official media. At the same Time, the wave of anti-Americanism in China also provided a perfect business opportunity for profitable businessmen.
The Apple Daily quoted scholars as saying that the phrase “Chinese people are standing up” from Mao Zedong’s 1949 statement to “Chinese people don’t eat this stuff” is the same. The scholar believes that “Chinese people are not happy” and “My country is awesome”.
According to the scholar, “Chinese people don’t eat this” is not Yang Jiechi’s phrase, but Xi Jinping‘s. It is also a very bottom-level phrase, especially in the past nine years, Xi Jinping’s administration has returned to the bottom-level politics of the Mao era, which is the “new Maoism”. This is the “new Maoism,” which outsiders have criticized as a War Wolf.
Pictured are Chinese migrant workers at work in a cotton factory in Shihezi, China’s Xinjiang province.
However, Yang Jiechi’s “China does not eat this” has now been changed to “Xinjiang cotton does not eat this” by the Communist Party’s official media.
Official media threaten to say “Xinjiang cotton doesn’t eat this”
On March 25, a number of CCP official media reported with the title “Xinjiang Cotton Does Not Eat This! said that H&M Group recently issued a statement saying that they do not work with any garment manufacturing factories in Xinjiang and do not source products/raw materials from the region. Nike and other companies have also proposed a “boycott” of Xinjiang cotton.
Doing so, the newspaper claimed, would only be reviled by the majority of Chinese consumers. “Boycott”? Xinjiang cotton does not eat this!
Before that, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States announced on the 22nd, in view of the massive violations of human rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, to impose sanctions on relevant Chinese officials.
On March 24, the Chinese Communist Party used official media and social media platforms to turn up the major brands to refuse to use the statement of Xinjiang cotton, driving the entire population to boycott.
H&M, an internationally renowned fashion giant with nearly 500 stores in China, was the first to bear the brunt of the campaign, and the official Sina Weibo account of the Communist Youth League was the first to launch an offensive against H&M.
At 10:48 a.m. on the 24th, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League sent out its first Weibo post, uploading a screenshot of H&M’s statement, which reads, “Boycotting Xinjiang cotton while trying to make money in China? Delusional!” The post also included the hashtag “HM bumps Xinjiang cotton”. However, the post did not explain the release time of H&M’s statement.
An hour later, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League issued another post with a picture saying that H&M had “crossed the line”. 11 minutes later, it issued another picture with “Xinjiang cotton does not eat this” in white letters on a red background. This picture, which was widely spread on the Chinese network afterwards, also followed Yang Jiechi’s remark that “Chinese people don’t eat this” during the meeting between the U.S. and China.
After the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, almost all of the official media, including CCTV and People’s Daily, launched an all-out attack on H&M.
On the same day, Chinese artists Huang Xuan and Song Xi, who had business cooperation with H&M, issued a statement saying they cut ties with H&M.
After the international fashion retail giant H&M issued a statement refusing to use Xinjiang cotton, the Chinese Communist Party’s official media went into overdrive to bombard H&M and call for a national boycott.
Nike becomes No.1 in Weibo hot search
24 Chinese online also began circulating a statement from international sports brand Nike (NIKE) last year, Nike is concerned about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang and will stop using textiles and yarn from Xinjiang.
The statement was strongly besieged by the old little pink, Nike also became the first Weibo hot search on the night of the 24th.
At 9:00 a.m. on the 25th, mainland Lehua Entertainment released a statement through its official Weibo account saying that its artist Wang Yibo had terminated all cooperation with the NIKE brand. After that, artist Tan Songyun studio official microblog also announced that Tan Songyun will terminate all cooperation with NIKE.
Nike is through the international non-profit organization “good cotton development association” (BCI) cotton procurement agreement, BCI existing partners also include Adidas Group, Uniqlo, GU, ZARA, Gap, Indy, IKEA, etc., about more than 200 brands.
BCI, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is a non-profit international membership organization and is currently the world’s largest cotton sustainability program. BCI says the program has now provided sustainable farming for 2.3 million cotton farmers in 23 countries.
According to an official BCI statement, the use of Xinjiang cotton will be discontinued as of October 2020, citing forced labor and human rights violations in the region.
Statements made by H&M and Nike last year about Xinjiang are now being brought up by the Chinese Communist Party to rehash old debts, and are thought to be related to recent sanctions against Xinjiang officials in Western democracies.
On March 22, 2021, the European Union announced sanctions against four Xinjiang officials and the Public Security Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps over human rights issues in Xinjiang, the first post-June 4 sanctions against the CCP, and on the same day the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada also issued statements imposing sanctions on CCP officials involved in Xinjiang.
Recent Comments