China has once again shown its stubborn attitude to the world. The ‘dragon’ has erupted over H&M speaking out on human rights violations on Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang region. It has removed the product of H&M from the Internet in the country. The company’s product shows are not being done for online shopping on any e-commerce platform in the country. This has been done by the Chinese government to put pressure on shoes and clothing company H&M.
H&M products are not visible on the country’s large e-commerce platforms like Alibaba and JDDot Com. Chinese media has launched a boycott campaign against this Swedish company. The reason behind this is H&M’s decision not to buy cotton grown in Xinjiang region. Due to this abusive decision of China, H&M is facing difficulty in reaching Chinese consumers. A fifth of shopping in China is done online. In such a situation, H&M may suffer a lot due to this decision of China.
Country celebrities break ties with big brands including H&M
Apart from H&M, many well-known companies have spoken on the issue of Xinjiang. For this reason, the government media has started a campaign against them. In such a situation, pressure has also increased on dozens of celebrities in the country, who have signed endorsement deals with these companies. These celebrities have now ended their agreement with brands like Nike, Adidas, Barbary, Uniqlo and Lacoste. These big brands are finding it difficult to distance themselves from this issue without facing Chinese vengeance. They fear that due to Chinese action, they will lose their access to the world’s largest and fastest growing market.
… Because of this, companies gave a statement on Xinjiang
The real reason for increasing pressure on companies is to face criticism from human rights activists in their country. Actually, human rights activists are constantly pressurizing these companies to speak on the issue of Xinjiang. On the other hand, this pressure is also increasing because human rights activists are lobbying companies to separate themselves from sponsorship of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022.