Boycott Battles May Not Go China’s Way
Whipping up a storm against H&M and other brands over Xinjiang will have one sure impact — keeping everyone talking about the crackdown there.
A traffic officer patrols the street in front of an H&M store in Shanghai.
Source: Bloomberg
With 1.4 billion consumers, China has a powerful weapon it is not shy of using.
In the past few years, Beijing has held tourists back from shopping jaunts to South Korea to punish Seoul for deploying a U.S. missile shield, and dropped National Basketball Association broadcasts over an official’s tweeted support for Hong Kong protesters. The latest display of whipped-up anger involves Hennes & Mauritz AB, purveyor of affordable clothing, due to a months-old statement expressing concern over reports of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang. Beijing, smarting from coordinated Western sanctions, is retaliating in kind.