China’s home-grown brands benefiting from resurgence as trade war shifts focus closer to home

China’s iconic White Rabbit candy, which 47 years ago was a symbol of warming US-China ties, is drawing renewed interest as part of a wave of Chinese home-grown brand fever that is building among domestic consumers amid the prolonged trade war.

The milk-flavoured candy, which was presented to US president Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1972 by then premier Zhou Enlai, is among a handful of storied Chinese brands reinventing themselves with crossover and ancillary products to entice a new breed of millennial shoppers, riding on the trend known as guochao in Chinese.

Such demand will help, albeit on relatively small scale now, Beijing’s move to shift the economy to domestic consumption-driven growth to counter falling exports and the country’s biggest economic slowdown in nearly three decades, compounded by the trade war with the US. It would also support the nation’s drive to build up indigenous brands, products and services that will reduce its reliance on Western imports.

“The government will definitely support guochao, as this helps raise the commercial value of Chinese brands,” said Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China.

It is not just the historical or time-honoured brands like White Rabbit, Warrior trainers and Shanghai M&G Stationery that have benefited from the trend, new domestic brands are very much part of the wave.

Increasing domestic interest, especially among younger consumers, is a natural course in any country’s development story and not necessarily fuelled by nationalistic sentiments because of the US-China trade war, said Shen Qinfeng, marketing manager of state-owned Guan Sheng Yuan (Group), a 104-year-old Shanghai-based confectionery and foodstuff manufacturer which produces White Rabbit candy.