By Jamyang Norbu
As you make your final plans for ringing out those Boycott bells this holiday season, remember that there is only one way left for us to halt, or at least affect China’s population transfer into Tibet and the myriad other egregious violations and crimes against the Tibetan and Chinese people. We have to deprive China of the foreign capital it invests in maintaining itsbrutal apparatus of control and repression.
The boycott campaign can do that. The major sectors of China’s economy, including its banking system, are still not in good shape because of corruption and state control. The one sector that is performing well is export manufacturing: toys, clothes, household items, basic electronics, etc. These are manufactured in relocated factories largely owned by Korean, Taiwanese and Western companies. The profit margins on such exports are slim, but volume in sales makes up for that. Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico, India and other countries are competing for this market. So, it’s not as if China’s economy were completely invulnerable. Just take all those media stories about China’s amazing economic performance with a grain of salt. Remember they were saying pretty much the same thing about Enron a few years ago.
The Boycott ‘Made In China’ Campaign is not just a symbolic effort. We believe it will succeed. It will eventually cause China real and serious concern. There are not many of us Tibetans in this world, but we must lead this campaign by building a worldwide coalition of human rights, religious, labor and other activist and advocacy groups, as well as individuals of conscience. Our old palas and amalas, monks and youth, everyone, must stand in front of stores and shopping malls winter and summer, month after month and hand out boycott leaflets to all shoppers. By doing this (and everything else we can think of) we will not only inform the populace on the issue of Tibet, on China’s human rights abuses of its own citizens, and on the increasingly dangerous threat to jobs at home, but we will give these consumers something immediate and effective to do about this moral outrage – Boycott Made in China.
Most of the Christmas lights, decorations, toys and other holiday presents on store shelves this season have been ‘Made in China.’ Remind holiday shoppers that when they buy these goods they are contributing to the perpetuation of a labor force that is paid on average between 30 and 60 cents an hour (and sometimes as little as three cents an hour), and that has no right to organize, to bargain or to strike. In China, most labor organizers are either in jail or slave labor (laogai) camps, or have been executed with a bullet in the back of the neck. Moreover, holiday shopping is taking away jobs at home as more industries move their manufacturing bases to China. And, of course, shoppers should be reminded that their purchases are helping to finance China’s military occupation of Tibet.
For sample press releases (one for int’l groups; one for the USA), flyers, boycott Christmas carols (thanks to SFT, USTC and Ruckus for supplying the creative input and sharing these), and other direct economic action tools, please write to us at usa@boycottmadeinchina.org and we will send them off to you. Also, check out our website (www.boycottmadeinchina.org) for more materials, such as sample brochures. Please feel free to modify as you wish and add information about your group or organization to the materials provided. Also, please send us news and updates on your boycott activities.
Let us work to create and effectively wield this powerful weapon of non-violence, for which Gandhi said only two conditions were necessary for its eventual success: truth and perseverance. Without doubt we have the first. We must not fail on the second.
