Beijing calls for boycott of H&M and Nike after stance against treatment of Uyghurs
Audio 01:17
A Chinese police officer tries to dissuade journalists from taking photos outside an H&M store after boycott calls against the chain in Beijing on March 25, 2021. AFP - GREG BAKER
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
The products of H&M, the largest ready-to-wear manufacturer, have disappeared from Chinese online sales platforms since Wednesday, March 24, in China.
And now, personalities representing the brand in the country are leaving the ship and terminating their contract, just like others with the American supplier Nike.
It is the result of a campaign led by Beijing after the two companies took a stand against forced labor in Xinjiang.
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
Apart from the shelves a little less crowded than usual for a weekend afternoon and the "baoan" (security guards) busy pushing away cameras and cameras from journalists, this H&M store in central Beijing seems to be in favor. the moment escape the call for a boycott launched on social networks and relayed by the central television of China.
She said the brand would certainly pay a "
heavy price for its bad deed
"
targeting Xinjiang
.
A message heard and repeated almost word for word by this young Beijing woman: “
I will not buy here anymore, because it is a lack of respect for the country and an economic threat.
We learned the news yesterday, it is one of the main topics of discussions on Weibo.
"
Outbreaks of comments on the Chinese social network Weibo, followed by breaches of contracts.
Actor Huang Xuan and singer Victoria Song say they no longer want to work with the Swedish brand.
The same goes for the actor and singer Wang Yibo
who ceases his collaboration
with Nike, the
American brand having also broken with the cotton producers of Xinjiang
… 8 months ago.
Leaving the H&M store, preceded by a cart full of boxes, a student from Shenzhen is skeptical of the boycott: “
I think the people who call for a boycott are crazy.
Things are not clear, they are calling for a boycott because they are being encouraged to do so.
This is not reasonnable.
"
China is now H&M's fourth largest market in the world with sales exceeding 287 million euros last year.
But since Wednesday March 24, searches for its products on online sales platforms Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo have no longer yielded results.
This call for a boycott of Beijing comes after
the sanctions decided on Monday, March 22 by Europe
, the
United States
, the United Kingdom and
Canada
against Chinese officials accused of human rights violations in Xinjiang.
►
To read also:
Uyghurs: internal China of children in "camps for orphans", denounces Amnesty
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