We Don't Have to Trade With China

We don't:

The Chinese regime is taking on foreign apparel and footwear brands amid global fallout over its genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. Undeterred by growing international condemnation over its human rights abuses, Beijing is pressing the companies to reverse their position on Xinjiang by way of boycotts.

The regime has dredged up past statements made by companies—some up to two years old—to distance themselves from sourcing materials from the northwestern Chinese region over potential forced labor abuses. It hopes to stoke nationalist fervor and encourage a nationwide boycott.

The outrage from Beijing followed days after the United States, Canada, the European Union, and the UK issued joint sanctions on Chinese officials for their role in persecuting Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Already, about a dozen brands are feeling Beijing’s wrath. Nike, H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, Converse, Puma, and Calvin Klein have lost their brand ambassadors as Chinese celebrities—faced with naming and shaming by Chinese internet trolls—moved quickly to cut ties.

Major Chinese e-commerce sites such as Alibaba-owned Taobao, Pinduoduo, and JingDong Mall have dropped H&M products, while some Chinese internet influencers eagerly endorsed domestic brands. One post circulating on Chinese social media listed more than 30 foreign brands that it suggests boycotting.

“The spotless white cotton from Xinjiang brooks no smearing from any forces,” said Gao Feng, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce, at a March 25 press conference.

 

Indeed:

Like Li Chun Mei, Zhou Shien Pin came from a remote corner of the Sichuan province.

 He got a job in a paint factory and was hoping to save enough to build his family a house. But then he touched a high-voltage wire.

 The accident has scarred his face and chest and his toes have melted away like wax, leaving just his ankles and heels.

 "My mother cried for two months after it happened", he told me. The boss paid £2,500 ($4,000) compensation, but that money was quickly used up in medical fees and by relatives who had to travel down south to look after him.

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Chinese textile firms are increasingly using North Korean factories to take advantage of cheaper labor across the border, traders and businesses in the border city of Dandong told Reuters.

 

Smearing what now?

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Twenty Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan's air defence identification zone on Friday, in the largest incursion yet reported by the island's defence ministry and marking a dramatic escalation of tension across the Taiwan Strait.

The island's defence ministry said the air force deployed missiles to "monitor" the incursion into the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone. It also said its planes warned the Chinese aircraft, including by radio.

It marked the largest incursion to date by the Chinese air force since Taiwan's defence ministry began disclosing almost daily Chinese military flights over the waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea last year.

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The professor’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese regime. They include: interfering in U.S. elections, controlling the American market, cultivating global enemies to challenge the United States, stealing American technology, expanding Chinese territory, and influencing international organizations.

The plan was explained in detail by Jin Canrong, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University of China, in a July 2016 speech on “Sino-U.S. Strategic Philosophy” given over two full days at Southern Club Hotel Business Class in south China’s Guangzhou City.

“We want to be the world leader,” Jin said, explaining Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for a “national rejuvenation” of the country.

Dubbed “teacher of the state” by Chinese netizens, Jin is a prominent scholar known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric. He is an advisor to two powerful bodies of the CCP, the Organization Department, and the United Front Work Department, though it is unclear how close he is to Xi.