Days after the Xinjiang cotton fiasco, the international brand H&M issued a statement promising to manage the current challenges and regain the trust and confidence of its Chinese customers, colleagues and business partners. However, the Chinese authorities have continued to lash out at what they say is the behavior of some foreign companies that “eat Chinese Food while smashing Chinese bowls”. Observers say the boycott is being fueled by the Chinese government and that the majority of the population is reacting rationally, and that the storm will pass as quickly as ever.
“Eat China’s food, smash China’s bowl”
The world-famous Swedish clothing brand group H&M (Hennessy-Mauritz) issued a statement on Wednesday (March 31) regarding the boycott of the company’s products by some Chinese netizens and consumers, saying that it “is working with Chinese colleagues to do its best to manage the current challenges and find a way forward. “
We are committed to regaining the trust and confidence of our customers, colleagues and business partners in China,” H&M said in the statement, issued about a week after people in China boycotted the company’s goods, “China is a very important market for us, and we remain firmly committed to the country for the long term. commitment to China.”
The incident began last Monday, March 22, when the European Union announced sanctions against four Xinjiang officials and an entity for human rights abuses by Xinjiang authorities against the Muslim Uighur minority. China immediately reacted strongly, calling the EU sanctions “based on lies and false information,” and announced sanctions against 10 individuals and four entities within the EU.
In this context, an H&M statement that had been reported in the media last year was “suddenly” unearthed by Chinese netizens and sparked a wave of boycotts in China. H&M will no longer source cotton for its products from Xinjiang.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press conference on March 25 that the accusations of “forced labor” of Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities were based on lies, and that the Chinese people could not accept “eating Chinese rice while smashing Chinese bowls”.
Then, at a press conference on March 29, another spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, said directly to the foreign company that allegedly “defamed” Xinjiang’s cotton: “Doing business with respect, while earning money from Chinese consumers, smearing and attacking China to the detriment of Chinese interests. To use a common saying, eating Chinese food, but also smashing the Chinese pot. There is no such thing as beauty under the sky!”
Behind the scenes, the Chinese Communist Party is pushing a wave of boycotts
In China, where the soil of patriotism, and even nationalism, runs deep, and where it is politically important to align with the Party Central Committee and government, statements by international brand companies, including H&M, on the issue of cotton in Xinjiang last year caused a strong backlash among Chinese endorsement stars and netizens.
More recently, what Chinese media have described as “a group of positive stars” have issued statements to terminate their contracts or cooperation. Some online statistics say that more than 100 celebrities and artists have terminated their contracts or partnerships with foreign brand companies.
At the same Time, Chinese online shopping platforms, Taobao, Jingdong and Jindo, have taken down H&M’s products. Some Chinese netizens are even taking the lead in this boycott of foreign brands. Some Weibo posts said, “Boycott H&M, smash the Chinese pot, still want to eat Chinese food? The company is a member of the China Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology. ” and so on.
In an interview with the Voice of America, Zola, a “civilian journalist” and weblogger originally from Hunan, China, who now lives in Taiwan, said that the Chinese authorities have used the tools of public opinion to manipulate the boycott wave.
He said, “Over the years in China, since Xi Jinping came to power, their nationalist and nationalistic sentiments have been intentionally amplified or indulged by the government, so that other rational voices of the people have not been able to come out. This boycott is a government-led, guided voice of resistance, not a spontaneous one by the people.”
According to Zola, the Chinese people, including celebrity entertainers, have to embrace the country, the government and the Communist Party, so they will support whatever the government says. They don’t think about how the cotton is produced in Xinjiang and what the social environment is in Xinjiang. However, the international community believes that corporate social responsibility is important and that consumers should not buy cotton and products from Xinjiang that are produced using forced labor.
Is the public really boycotting, or is it a fake boycott?
A citizen of Qingdao, China, surnamed Li, told the Voice of America, “These things have nothing to do with the common people.”
Wang Debang, an observer in Guilin, Guangxi, China, said the Internet has opened up the Chinese public’s horizons and diversified access to information, and the people’s views are no longer, as they used to be, “only what the government says to believe. He said that this boycott phenomenon, which occurs in big cities, is numb and irrelevant to the ordinary people.
He said; “I even think that this phenomenon may be a truer reflection of the mentality of the general public in China at the moment. So, the so-called boycott, the nationalist fervor, obviously there are some forces behind the manipulation, pushing the wave, to exaggerate the anger, deliberately exaggerate, to promote this nationalism through the Internet.”
Wang Depong said China’s past history has staged such farces many times, such as when some people smashed Japanese cars. Behind these incidents, he said, is not the expression of nationalist sentiment, but the manipulation of power through nationalism.
According to Zan Aizong, an observer in Jiangsu, while the boycott of H&M is still fermenting, some foreign brands, such as Nike’s sneakers, have recently triggered a rush of consumers to buy them because of a price cut promotion.
Zan Aizong told Voice of America, “This shows whether it’s a real boycott or a fake boycott. The public opinion makes people boycott, or the authorities say they make people boycott, and the people will boycott, I think, the people are still more rational.”
He said the indifference of the Chinese people to the boycott storm is also manifested in the strengthening of the people’s self-awareness, because “the money is their own earned money, why should they be influenced by the government, public opinion?” He said the poor quality of national products compared with foreign brands is obvious, consumers have the ability to distinguish, many Chinese consumers especially like Apple cell phones, is the problem.
Wang said the public’s indifference to the boycott is also a declaration to society that the public is no longer the past “to follow the power of the stick to wave the era,” the authorities want to agitate the public to achieve their goals, will not be so easy to succeed.
The authorities’ manipulative boycott will eventually dissipate
Observers point out that, just like the boycott of Japanese goods, this wave of so-called patriotism and nationalism of the boycott of H&M will also dissipate with the passage of time.
In 2012, The Japanese government nationalized the Senkaku Islands (known as Diaoyu Islands in China), which are under its jurisdiction. China declared that the Diaoyu Islands have belonged to China since ancient times and expressed strong opposition to Japan’s nationalization of the islands. The incident caused a strong backlash among the Chinese public, with anti-Japanese activities occurring in many cities. Some places even saw violent incidents of vandalism and looting against Japanese people, Japanese companies and Japanese goods. But the anti-Japanese wave, which lasted for several days, gradually subsided and finally subsided. Today, consumers continue to buy Japanese goods as usual.
A recent video circulating on the Internet shows some people spontaneously going to H&M stores to hold signs in protest, only to be forcibly removed and taken away by police. Observers believe this is some indication that the Chinese government appears to be manipulating a limited boycott rather than fully condoning civil protest.
Internet watcher Zola said, “Since the Chinese government has indicated that it is not willing to decouple the situation, so I believe that this protest will not last long, just a symbolic protest and then continue hoping to enter the world’s economic system. There is no way for China to decouple itself from the U.S.-dominated world economy either.”
Jiangsu-based observer Zan Aizong also believes that any man-made boycott will be temporary, and that those that follow the laws of the market will last. After the Norwegian Nobel Prize jury awarded Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the peace prize that year, the Chinese government stopped importing salmon, which is popular in China. But as Liu Xiaobo’s award faded, China resumed importing Norwegian salmon. It was boycotted for political reasons, but once it passed, it resumed,” he says. As long as it’s artificial, it will resume soon.”
One netizen said, “The Chinese will buy Nike and H&M goods again, and we never succeeded in boycotting anything. Sad.”
Zola said that China’s domestic policy making will get worse and worse under the Chinese Communist authorities’ manipulation of public opinion and public sentiment. He said, “I believe that with such manipulation, there will be a dominant opinion of the Chinese Communist authorities and a so-called public opinion dominated by nationalism and statism. So, China’s policy-making will get worse and worse because the people’s opinions are not adequately discussed, so the government decisions that are eventually formed will become more and more absurd and worse and worse.”
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