«Mind your own business! HANDS OFF #XINJIANG!»
Chinese state media called for a boycott of Swedish clothing retailer H&M last week because the chain had announced it would no longer buy cotton from China’s Xinjiang region. But as the Post pointed, the announcement by H&M wasn’t new. It had been sitting online for months when it was dredged up by the CCP’s keyboard warriors. On Wednesday night, Chinese state broadcaster CGTN dredged up the statement and called for consumers to boycott H&M, saying the brand would pay a heavy cost. The call to boycott was repeated in other major state-media outlets, an unusual level of coordination in targeting a brand. Actually, the way this works in China is even more amusing than this sounds. State media doesn’t come out and admit they are pushing the same story at the same time because they were told to do so. Instead, the story is written a reaction to Chinese “netizens” who are suddenly angry about H&M. The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) slammed H&M’s comment in a post on its Weibo account on Wednesday, saying “Spreading rumors to boycott Xinjiang cotton while also wanting to make money in China? It is wishful thinking!” In another post, the CYLC used the remarks made by Chinese senior diplomat Yang Jiechi at last week’s Alaska meeting with US officials, in which he said that “the Chinese people won’t accept this,” referring to the US condescending actions against China.
