Stephen Vines

The View | Why consumer boycotts of US brands in China might hit Chinese companies the hardest

Stephen Vines says if a patriotism-fuelled boycott of US products in China gets under way, the Chinese companies behind these brands would be the worst affected

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A McDonald’s delivery man rides past an abandoned railway track near residential buildings in Beijing in May 2017. Photo: AP

Stephen Vines

Published: 1:00pm, 29 Aug 2018Updated: 10:31pm, 29 Aug 2018

Will the US-China trade war provoke consumer boycotts as the heat rises?

The answer in the case of American consumers is almost certainly not because awareness of Chinese brands is extremely low, and although Americans buy vast quantities of Chinese-made goods, many do so with little awareness of where these goods come from, not least because the final assembly of goods essentially made in China often takes place in the US.

Chinese consumers, by contrast, tend to be acutely aware of US brands, actively seeking them out, whether it involves buying hi-tech goods, such as smartphones, or heading off to a Starbucks for coffee. Will this brand awareness lead to consumer boycotts?

A survey likely to gladden the hearts of trade warriors in Beijing found that a clear majority – 54 per cent of respondents – drawn from 300 Chinese cities said they would “probably” or “definitely” boycott US-branded goods in the event of a trade war; only 13 per cent said they would not.

The survey was largely carried out before America’s July 6 imposition of additional tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese goods. It was conducted by FT Confidential Research, a unit of the Financial Times newspaper.

Although this did not make the headline when the results were published, the survey found that the most likely boycotters were aged 25-29, had lower middle incomes and lived out of the major metropolitan areas. In other words, people who were less likely to be the main customers for US brands.