Amazon "Blocks" All Chinese Cotton? Why Are Chinese E-Commerce So Calm!

Yesterday, someone on Weibo disclosed that Amazon of the United States had removed all Chinese cotton goods from the shelves, and the news went on a hot search.

But at that time, Xiao Wang immediately searched the news of Amazon's off shelf Chinese cotton, and did not see relevant reports.

The information on the microblog is still fermenting. A notice suspected to have been released by Amazon has aroused widespread concern. The seller is required to first guarantee that the goods sold do not contain Xinjiang cotton, but also to provide six orders and invoices. From the purchase of cotton raw silk to the cotton thread, the guarantee is extremely demanding.

According to the source, it is impossible for ordinary sellers to issue the above certificates, so the only result is: Amazon's Chinese merchants are forced to leave Amazon.

But is this the case? Xiao Wang found a number of Amazon China e-commerce providers to verify today. Surprisingly, they are very calm!

Fact 1: Amazon has not yet removed all Chinese cotton from its shelves

Fact 2: Amazon does issue a supply chain ban

However, the ban has been in effect before. From the text, it does not mention Xinjiang, but names Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan.

Now in Amazon search "Xinjiang cotton", can not find any information. In the product introduction, the general business will fill in the material, the more detailed the better. And most businesses are careful to delete any information related to it. However, it is certain that the pure "cotton fabrics" of Chinese merchants are still on sale.

Fact 3: there are risks in going through customs

Amazon China e-commerce said. Now the probability of us customs spot check is large, and it is indeed more and more strict. So far, he has not heard of the special spot check on cotton products by the customs.

There are three reasons why Amazon China's e-commerce is not anxious at present

First, Amazon China's e-commerce has not been removed from the shelves in large areas due to cotton fabrics;

Second, most e-commerce companies have not received the notice of issuing "self guarantee" circulated on the Internet;

Third, it is difficult for Amazon to completely ban Xinjiang cotton.

In addition to Chinese sellers, many textile sellers in the world use Chinese raw materials, such as clothing made in Southeast Asia. In the words of Amazon China's e-commerce, Amazon will not cut off its own revenue.

Why is it difficult for the United States to ban Xinjiang cotton

First of all, China has always been the largest clothing export country of the United States. Although China's share of the United States clothing import decreased from 40% to 36.6% due to the previous trade, the clothing produced by China still occupies the main market of American clothing consumption.

In addition, with the transfer of textile industry to Southeast Asia, the proportion of clothing imported by the United States to Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh has been increasing year by year. However, due to the shortage of cotton productivity in many Southeast Asian countries, cotton yarn and other raw materials also come from China. For example, Vietnam imports more than 50% of its cotton yarn from China every year, and nearly half of the clothing produced by Vietnam is directly exported to the United States. More than 80% of these cotton yarns come from Xinjiang cotton.

Xinjiang cotton has always been the pillar of China's textile industry. As the largest textile exporter in the world, Xinjiang is the main producer of cotton in textiles. In 1949, Xinjiang cotton only accounted for 1% of the national output. By 2012, Xinjiang cotton production accounted for more than 50%. In 2020, Xinjiang cotton's annual output was about 5 million tons, which accounted for 87% of the total national cotton output, accounting for about 20% of the global total annual cotton output of 25 million tons.

This is mainly due to more scientific cotton planting and the development of mechanical cotton picking. According to the data of China agricultural network, the sown area of cotton in Xinjiang will be 24.196 million mu in 2020, including 16.896 million mu of mechanical cotton picking. In 2021, Xinjiang will continue to increase the efficiency of mechanical cotton picking and shift to full mechanization. The mechanization rate of cotton production will reach 88%.

It can be said that Xinjiang cotton not only supports the development of China's textile industry, but also supports the global garment industry. It's not just fast consumer fashion brands and cheap counterfeit goods 20 years ago. With the continuous upgrading and progress of China's technology in the global cotton textile industry chain, and the quality of Xinjiang cotton which is higher than that of global cotton, the raw materials of first-line brands such as Prada, coach and murberry are inseparable from Xinjiang cotton.

At present, the three countries with the largest cotton production in the world are China, the United States and India. At present, India and the United States are still affected by the new crown epidemic, and cotton production is seriously reduced, which also means that the United States will be more dependent on the Chinese market. Once Xinjiang cotton is strictly prohibited, it will certainly bring about a large range of price fluctuations for the U.S. clothing market. This is also the main reason why Amazon chose "policy on the top and Countermeasures on the bottom".

Cotton ban before trump steps down

In fact, the U.S. ban on Xinjiang cotton was promulgated by the trump government in January this year. At that time, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the United States completely prohibited the import of raw fibers, clothing and textiles made from cotton produced in Xinjiang, even if they were processed or manufactured in a third country.

The U.S. Customs and border protection, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is estimated to have imported about $9 billion of cotton products from China in the past year.

However, the timing of the ban is worth pondering. In January, when Trump's presidential term came to the countdown, trump launched this vicious move, obviously to create a difficult problem for his successor Biden.

Now, instead of solving the problem, the Biden administration is moving in a more complex direction. On March 22, the Biden administration announced a new round of sanctions in conjunction with the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada. China immediately made a resolute response. On March 27, the White House and the State Department of the United States expressed their support for us and European enterprises to abandon Xinjiang cotton, and attributed the boycott of us and European clothing enterprises in China to the "Chinese social media movement".

In this public opinion war, the western society has always been arrogant and turns a deaf ear to the response and explanation from China. Wu Yan, chief representative of the Shanghai Representative Office of the Swiss good cotton Development Association, said in an interview that she had been the chief representative for eight years and led the team to strictly implement the triple standard of good cotton. First, the producer unit conducts self-assessment; then, the good cotton Shanghai team conducts the credibility audit; finally, the third-party audit agency issues a separate verification report. In response to overseas questions about Xinjiang cotton, good cotton Shanghai Representative Office conducted a strict review of Xinjiang project. The conclusion is: in China, the good cotton association has not found any cases of forced labor.

However, Wu Yan's team submitted two investigation reports to Haohao cotton headquarters, and also summarized the testing reports of third-party testing institutions such as Swiss Tongbiao company over the years, and repeatedly reiterated with international non-governmental organizations and other interested parties that no forced labor cases were found in China. However, good cotton headquarters in Switzerland ignored the reports and suspended the certification of Xinjiang cotton.

The reasons behind this are complex, including frequent pressure from the so-called international human rights bodies, and the stakeholders behind these institutions can also be guessed.

In this battle of ideology, diplomacy and geopolitics, the first victim is the global consumers. The US's practice of frequently launching sanctions has long been proved to be unworkable or even counterproductive. Under various prohibitions in the trump era, China's exports to the United States will increase by 7.9% year-on-year in 2020, and its imports will increase by 9.8% and the trade surplus will reach US $316.9 billion. Why does the United States always think that sanctions can solve the problem when the economies of various countries are intertwined and integrated with each other?

As China's economy occupies an increasingly important position in international trade, we should also consider how to participate in and formulate industry standards, jointly create trade rules, build an international standard system in line with common interests through policies and regulations, and constantly strengthen the international discourse power, so as to protect Xinjiang cotton and other Chinese industries.