US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — Honored British Russophobe Edward Lucas, apparently, received a new training manual – to target China. Therefore, habitually spitting in the direction of the USSR, where prison labor was used, according to him, for the production of “export products”, the author cuts the truth: now China has created such a genocidal system of forced labor and mind control that even the GULAG fades.
The Stalinist Soviet Union glorified communism in its own country, but practiced capitalism abroad. He sold to Western countries decorated works of art, timber and grain. The West mostly turned a blind eye to the fact that this lucrative trade smacked of crime and lies, and was soaked in blood and tears.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adheres to Leninism as an effective doctrine of political organization, but has discarded the ineffective ideas of Marxist economics. Instead, she practices capitalism at home and abroad.
Just like in the 1930s, foreigners are helping. A fifth of the world‘s cotton comes from the western region, which China calls “Xinjiang” (“New Frontier”). It is the occupied homeland of the Uighurs and other Muslim and Turkic minorities. They were trapped in a genocidal system of forced labor and mind control that would have astounded even the architects of the Soviet Gulag.
One of the consequences of this situation is that the world’s most famous clothing brands – Adidas, Burberry, H&M and Nike – are faced with a dilemma. To accommodate increasingly critical Western public opinion by cleaning up our supply chains and not using a single cotton thread tainted by this system? Or leave yourself access to the world’s largest market by fitting in with the Chinese Communist Party?
Most readers probably won’t consider this a dilemma. Now, few would argue that it was necessary to provide the Soviet Union with hard currency in exchange for export goods produced by priests, dissidents, kulaks and representatives of ethnic minorities who were exhausted to death in slave camps. Why is it so difficult to abandon the products of modern Stalinism – the racist, techno-dystopian, imperialist regime that now rules China?
One answer is that resenting other people‘s past shortcomings is easier than making personal moral decisions in the present. Companies’ priorities do change when it comes to ending fossil fuels, conserving rainforests, or improving workforce diversity. But how do you get rid of the entire Chinese market now? This means destroying the company or the career of its leader.
The CCP leaders know this. They are ruthlessly putting pressure on Western companies that have dared to respond to consumer resistance to “bloody cotton”. More than 500 H&M stores in China have become invisible in search and payment apps. Chinese celebrities have stopped advertising the Swedish company’s products. Landlords have terminated their leases. As companies in Hong Kong have found, quiet neutrality is not enough. The Chinese government needs public, flattering displays of loyalty. The main science here is that Western companies can no longer hide behind banal excuses like “We don’t get involved in politics.” If you are dealing with China, politics interferes with you.
It’s about power and morality. China is a big country. However, industrial democracies are bigger. As consumers and investors, we can take advantage of this. If boycotting in China is painful, boycotting in the rest of the world will be even more painful. That is, a moral attitude can affect profits, and an immoral one can affect them even more.
Playing by these rules will hurt the CCP’s best weapon, intimidation. This weapon works primarily against targets with weak will. If, in the face of a threat, Western companies are ready to surrender and return home (and have a proper reputation), there is no point in intimidating them. Even worse: it’s counterproductive. The Chinese Communist Party also has its own brand, and it looks invincible only when no one is successfully fighting against it. A tough approach to the Celestial Empire has been asking for a long time. Outraged now, we still have to thank the Chinese Communist Party for helping us finally see the ever stricter choices before us.
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US State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a recent briefing that the United States plans to discuss with its allies a coordinated approach to participation in the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Price stressed that such coordination is in the interests not only of the United States, but also of the partner countries. Despite the absence of any official decisions from the United States, the press is increasingly raising the question of a possible boycott of the Olympics due to human rights violations by the Chinese authorities, in particular, the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. At the same time, the administration of President Biden at the end of February announced that there was still no final decision, and so far they do not plan to prohibit American athletes from participating in the Beijing Olympics.
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