{"id":2060,"date":"2021-04-03T23:46:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T14:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=2060"},"modified":"2021-04-03T23:46:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T14:46:39","slug":"chinese-social-media-users-burn-their-nikes-after-the-company-says-its-concerned-about-forced-labor-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2021\/04\/03\/chinese-social-media-users-burn-their-nikes-after-the-company-says-its-concerned-about-forced-labor-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese social-media users burn their Nikes after the company says it&#8217;s &#8216;concerned&#8217; about forced labor of Uyghurs in Xinjiang"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A video from a Weibo user showing a pair of Nike shoes burning.\u00a0Weibo<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insider.com\/chinese-weibo-angry-xinjiang-burning-nike-shoes-2021-3?fbclid=IwAR2A6KjyuAjyKCJjkaenfUaV6TMrG04m9rNrLWQZJnTQ3UptXCGiQedcvI0\">Chinese Weibo Users Burn Nikes After Brand Critiques Uyghur Conditions (insider.com)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Chinese Weibo users are burning Nike shoes over a row between the brand and Chinese authorities.<\/li><li>Nike posted a statement highlighting reports of forced labor of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.<\/li><li>A major Chinese star has also severed ties with Nike, to mass online approval.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insider.com\/?hprecirc-bullet\">Visit Insider&#8217;s homepage for more stories<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chinese fans are up in arms after&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/purpose.nike.com\/statement-on-xinjiang\">Nike said it would not use cotton from China&#8217;s disputed Xinjiang region<\/a>, and some are burning their prized kicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sports company faced a massive backlash and boycott on the Chinese social-media platform Weibo after it released a statement highlighting reports of forced labor of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/purpose.nike.com\/statement-on-xinjiang\">Nike&#8217;s statement<\/a>&nbsp;on Xinjiang was not dated, but it was published online after&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/uk-usa-china-eu-sanctions-idUSKBN2BE2LF\">the European Union, the US, Britain, and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials this week over human-rights violations in Xinjiang<\/a>. In response, China&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/china-sanctions-eu-officials-in-response-to-uyghur-row\/a-56948924\">retaliated<\/a>&nbsp;by sanctioning European institutions and lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We are concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region.&#8221;https:\/\/5f70d79747d9b158f292b38740178176.safeframe.googlesyndication.com\/safeframe\/1-0-38\/html\/container.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nike also said that the company had been conducting &#8220;ongoing diligence&#8221; with its Chinese suppliers to &#8220;identify and assess potential forced labor risks related to the employment of Uyghurs, or other ethnic minorities from XUAR, in other parts of China.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Uyghur population, a Muslim ethnic minority, has been targeted by Chinese authorities for years. More than 1 million Uyghurs have been held in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/china-kept-building-uighur-internment-camps-despite-release-claims-report-2020-9\">hundreds of prison camps<\/a>&nbsp;since 2016, and the US has accused China of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The social-media storm over Nike&#8217;s comments erupted Thursday when screenshots and translations of the statement circulated on Weibo, with over 1 million conversation threads on the brand popping up in a matter of six hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The statement from Nike is f&#8212;ing disgusting. It makes me want to f&#8212;ing vomit. Nike has the gall to demand that its collaborators can&#8217;t use Xinjiang cotton. F&#8212; off out of China,&#8221; said one Beijing user with the Weibo ID Langli Chitiao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People began posting videos of themselves burning Nike Air Jordans and Air Force 1s, with some of these videos being reposted more than 100,000 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I burned all my Nikes. This is a matter of national pride. We will not be humiliated,&#8221; a user with the ID Xuanxuan Mingying said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Big brands face boycott after Xinjiang cotton stand<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sneaker-burning and anti-Nike vitriol is a sudden 180-degree shift, as the brand has long had a cult following in China \u2014 with bidding wars and a healthy black market for limited-edition sneakers operating on its social platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Nike is not the only brand drawing ire from Chinese social-media users. The New York Times reported that the products of the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&amp;M were being&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/24\/business\/handm-boycott-china-uyghurs.html\">yanked off major Chinese online shopping sites<\/a>&nbsp;as part of a mass boycott.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Human-rights groups have for several years&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/uighur-forced-labor-global-brands-profited-activists-letter-2020-7\">accused major retailers<\/a>&nbsp;of using forced labor, and recently several brands have publicly committed to disassociating from the practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Statements from brands including Adidas, Gap, Fila, New Balance, Zara, and Under Armour saying they will not use Xinjiang cotton have been added to a Weibo list of &#8220;brands to blacklist&#8221; that grows longer by the hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In contrast, the Japanese retailer Muji&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/weibo.com\/1974576991\/K7Nrqk2Cc?refer_flag=1001030103_&amp;type=comment#_rnd1616641902483\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;it would continue to use Xinjiang cotton. The decision became a top-trending topic on Weibo, with the trending subject &#8220;the survival instinct of Muji.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Chinese megastar severs ties with Nike<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u2014Chen Yu (@ChenYu122020)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mims\/statuses\/1242090655607697409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 23, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Chinese actor Wang Yibo terminated his contract as a representative for Nike after the company&#8217;s Xinjiang statement, his agency said in a statement on Weibo on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/605c17e40d155e0019ef69e5?width=700&amp;format=jpeg&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Wang Yibo\"\/><figcaption>The Chinese megastar Wang Yibo severed ties with Nike over its Xinjiang statement.&nbsp;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;From this day, our artist, Wang Yibo, will be terminating all collaborations with Nike. Our agency and Yibo strongly object to any words or actions that attempt to smear China,&#8221; Wang&#8217;s agency, Yuehua Entertainment, said in the statement.https:\/\/5f70d79747d9b158f292b38740178176.safeframe.googlesyndication.com\/safeframe\/1-0-38\/html\/container.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Our country&#8217;s dignity cannot be infringed upon, and we will protect our country&#8217;s pride and interests.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It appears that Wang&#8217;s hand might have been forced \u2014 scores of social-media users sent him death threats on Weibo until his agency made it clear that he no longer had a relationship with the brand and was no longer helping to advertise its Air Max 90 line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wang \u2014 who is known in China for his love of Nike sneakers and skateboards \u2014 was briefly branded a &#8220;national traitor&#8221; because of his association with the brand. But following Wang&#8217;s denouncement of Nike, Weibo users posted dedications and altered images of him in full military regalia, praising what they described as his &#8220;bravery.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A video from a Weibo user showing a pair of Nike shoes burning.\u00a0WeiboChinese Weibo Users Burn Nikes After Brand Critiques Uyghur Conditions (insider.com) Chinese Weibo &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[22,4],"class_list":["post-2060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-forced-labor","tag-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060\/revisions\/2062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}