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H&M upsets Vietnam after kowtowing to Beijing over ‘problematic map’
- Twitter users in Vietnam lash out after retailer reportedly agrees to edit map on its website to clarify Beijing’s territorial claims in South China Sea
- Swedish firm recently came under fire in China for its views on buying cotton from Xinjiang
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Swedish fashion retailer H&M is facing a new protest, this time from social media users in Vietnam who accuse it of kowtowing to China over a map of disputed territories in the South China Sea.
The controversy began on Friday when the Shanghai branch of the Cyberspace Administration of China said it had been alerted by members of the public to a “problematic map of China” on H&M’s website.
It did not specify what was wrong with the illustration, but on Weibo – China’s Twitter-like platform – a graphic from an earlier People’s Daily report showing the so-called nine-dash line – the mark Beijing uses to claim about 90 per cent of the disputed waters of the South China Sea – was widely shared.
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The Shanghai municipal bureau of planning and natural resources ordered the “error” to be remedied immediately and H&M complied, according to the cyberspace watchdog.
H&M declined to comment on the issue.
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However, the retailer’s apparent concession did not go down well in Vietnam, which holds rival claims to some of the territories contained within the nine-dash line.
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