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Their gain is not being associated with exploitation and forced labor. The idea that intelligence agencies and governments would coordinate such a campaign is

Their gain is not being associated with exploitation and forced labor. The idea that intelligence agencies and governments would coordinate such a campaign is absurd. First, the government doesn’t have that kind over influence over corporations and news outlets. I mean, the West isn’t China after all. Second, there are far easier ways to discredit China, like point to their very real abuse of people in Hong Kong.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
Twitter has executives who are also 'psychological warfare' officers in the British Army: "The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit" https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-part-time-officer-uk-army-psychological-warfare-unit https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-pa...
mytailorisrich 6y ago
> The idea that intelligence agencies and governments would coordinate such a campaign is absurd. I don't think it is absurd. FUD seeds only need to be planted and social media and news outlets will be more than happy to make this viral by themselves. Once public opinion is perceiving things in a certain way the situation becomes very difficult for companies, which obviously do not want their sales or image hurt and the facts become irrelevant. This is the subtlety our Western system where influence and fabrication of narrative still exist but are much more subtle than the blunt tools used in countries like China. It is quite likely in my opinion that the Xinjiang cotton 'issue' is at the very least massively overblown. This is a modern, mechanised industry and China is not exactly short of labour so the idea that Chinese cotton is produced by forced labour seems far-fetched and it is 'interesting' that this somehow suddenly becomes such a global issue. Shooting down Chinese cotton would not only hurt China and perhaps foster unrest in Xinjiang (people would lose their jobs), which can be useful to the West, but would also serve the economic interests of China's adversaries. After all it so happens that the top 3 cotton producers are India, China, and the USA, in that order. So this is very possibly a geopolitical powerplay.
makomk 6y ago
It's worth remembering that all many of these companies did is make the weakest, most inconsequential PR statements possible. They didn't take any kind of action against China, they didn't boycott Chinese goods or even Xinjiang cotton, they didn't even take a position on whether Xinjiang had slave labour. All they did was acknowledge several years ago that there were allegations of slave labour in Xinjiang and that, if they were true, that went against what they stood for - and that was enough for the Chinese government to effectively shut down their operations and sales in China.
HKH2 6y ago
I agree with you, yet it seems pretty common for people in the West to associate sportswear with sweatshops, which some argue is exploitation, so I see why people may be cynical about corporations caring about these things.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

Twitter has executives who are also 'psychological warfare' officers in the British Army: "The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit" https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-part-time-officer-uk-army-psychological-warfare-unit https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-pa...

mytailorisrich 6y ago

> The idea that intelligence agencies and governments would coordinate such a campaign is absurd. I don't think it is absurd. FUD seeds only need to be planted and social media and news outlets will be more than happy to make this viral by themselves. Once public opinion is perceiving things in a certain way the situation becomes very difficult for companies, which obviously do not want their sales or image hurt and the facts become irrelevant. This is the subtlety our Western system where influence and fabrication of narrative still exist but are much more subtle than the blunt tools used in countries like China. It is quite likely in my opinion that the Xinjiang cotton 'issue' is at the very least massively overblown. This is a modern, mechanised industry and China is not exactly short of labour so the idea that Chinese cotton is produced by forced labour seems far-fetched and it is 'interesting' that this somehow suddenly becomes such a global issue. Shooting down Chinese cotton would not only hurt China and perhaps foster unrest in Xinjiang (people would lose their jobs), which can be useful to the West, but would also serve the economic interests of China's adversaries. After all it so happens that the top 3 cotton producers are India, China, and the USA, in that order. So this is very possibly a geopolitical powerplay.

makomk 6y ago

It's worth remembering that all many of these companies did is make the weakest, most inconsequential PR statements possible. They didn't take any kind of action against China, they didn't boycott Chinese goods or even Xinjiang cotton, they didn't even take a position on whether Xinjiang had slave labour. All they did was acknowledge several years ago that there were allegations of slave labour in Xinjiang and that, if they were true, that went against what they stood for - and that was enough for the Chinese government to effectively shut down their operations and sales in China.

HKH2 6y ago

I agree with you, yet it seems pretty common for people in the West to associate sportswear with sweatshops, which some argue is exploitation, so I see why people may be cynical about corporations caring about these things.