The World This Week: China Boycotts Western Brands
The Daily Beast's Nico Hines and Le Figaro's Laure Mandeville discuss China's retaliation against fashion brands that have criticized Xinjiang over forced labor reports.
China’s recent boycotting of Western brands that have denounced Xinjiang over forced labor reports was spotlighted on Friday’s The World This Week—and the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly hostile reaction to any criticism from other superpowers took center stage in the discussion.
Le Figaro's Laure Mandeville said the boycotts exemplified “rising assertiveness from the Chinese” who have become “less and less accepting of criticism or raising flags on what they do.”
Nico Hines of The Daily Beast described the latest actions by China as “a real challenge to globalization” and speculated about whether growing tensions between world powers could lead to “a bipolar world trade system.”
“We’re reaching a point now where China is going to be so forthright and so controlling over companies that exist in their space,” said Hines. “There's no way China is going to start backing down. They’re going to become increasingly powerful and increasingly strong.”
