Xinjiang cotton controversy spills into virtual battle, as Tencent removes Burberry outfit from Honour of Kings, China’s top game

  • Tencent’s action comes days after it unveiled a cross-promotion deal with the British luxury fashion house
  • London-based Burberry has said that it did not use any raw materials from the Xinjiang region

Yao, a character from Tencent’s blockbuster online battle game Honor of Kings, dons a Burberry outfit. Photo: TiMi Studios/Burberry
Internet giant Tencent Holdings has removed two Burberry-designed “skins”, outfits worn by video game characters, from its popular title Honour of Kings on the grounds that the British fashion house refuses to buy cotton produced in the Xinjiang region – a move that signals China’s wider consumer boycott of foreign brands, from H&M to Nike.
The action, announced on Thursday by Tencent’s Honour of Kings team in a post on microblogging platform Weibo, was taken days after the Shenzhen-based company unveiled a deal with Burberry to promote its outfits in online games. The team did not give a reason for the move.
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