Consumer Nationalism

Consumer Nationalist Movements

The modern Chinese experience reveals the range of consumer nationalist activities, ranging from boycotts led by individuals to state-enforced consumption of domestic products. Such activities in the era of imperialism precipitated or accompanied major turning points in relations between imperialist powers and their colonies. China had significant anti-imperialist boycotts in 1905, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1925, 1928, 1931, and then nearly continuously into the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Such boycotts may have even provoked the war with Japan, which sought to ensure continued market access. After the Chinese Communist victory in 1949, Chinese leaders finally and completely gained control over tariffs. Within a few years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) government effectively banned the importation of virtually all consumer goods, particularly those from capitalist countries. Chinese consumers had little choice but to “buy Chinese.” Thirty years later, China dramatically changed course. With the initiation of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, China slowly began to import consumer goods.

As the range and volume of imports have grown with global trade liberalization since the 1990s, consumer nationalist exploitation of the historic tension [Page 280]between “domestic products” and “foreign products” periodically reemerges, even as the foreign/domestic categories of products become obsolete. In the Chinese case, with the lead up to its ascension to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, there have been at least three reasons for renewed consumer activism. First, China's WTO commitments allow easier market access for multinationals, rendering countless domestic enterprises uncompetitive and creating millions of unemployed workers. Second, a new generation of patriotic students continues to invoke the language of economic nationalism and call for boycotts, as did those participating in the widespread boycotts of the French retailing giant Carrefour in China in the spring of 2008 in retaliation for the disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Paris. Finally, domestic consumers periodically call for boycotts of specific foreign products when they feel consumers collectively have been treated poorly or differently by multinational companies.

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