“Hermes’ Birkin bag, which is sold for 38,000 dollars, can be manufactured at 1,400 dollars in our factory. I’ll show you why one by one.” This is the scene of a male employee of a clothing manufacturer in southern China posting a post on social media X and TikTok on the 13th. In fluent English, he holds a leather bag and explains the cost of each manufacturing process in detail, from leather to labor costs. And he kindly explains that the bag, which costs 1,400 dollars to manufacture, will be branded as Hermes Birkin bag, which will cost 38,000 dollars. The video ends with a suggestion, “If you need a bag of the same quality as Hermes Birkin bag without a logo, buy it from us.” The company claimed on its website, “The factory has 5,000 employees and was a producer of Chanel and Hermes with custom attachments, but the contract expired and now we are producing without a logo.” Analysts say that China has begun a social media psychological war targeting U.S. consumers amid the trade war, with the U.S. and China throwing unprecedented “tariff bombs” of 145% and 125%, respectively, after the inauguration of the second Donald Trump administration. Many of the high-priced Western luxury brands are manufactured in China at low prices, but as sales prices are soaring due to brand prices, promotional videos are being posted on social media to purchase them directly from China. Analysts say that the video is not just intended to pioneer a market, but to mock Trump’s high tariffs on China. This is because U.S. consumers who buy Chinese household goods will also be directly hit by soaring prices in the aftermath of Trump’s 145% tariff on China.
Public opinion campaigns on social media in China are not limited to luxury goods. A female TikTok influencer introduced a factory in China dedicated to custom-made production of global sports luxury goods such as Lululemon, famous for its yoga leggings, and Pillar and Under Armour, and promoted that “Lululemon leggings sold for 100 dollars on the market can be bought for only 5 to 6 dollars at the factory price.”
In fact, China, the world’s largest exporter of textile products, accounts for 70% of the world’s chemical fiber production, and 70 billion clothes are made every year in China (the Federation of Chinese Textile Industries), which is half of the world’s production. The U.S. is the largest importer of Chinese clothing, and as of last year, the U.S. imported more than 40 percent (US$51 billion) of textile products from China, according to the China Textile Import and Export Association. Of the clothing sold in the U.S., only 2% of the clothing is produced in the U.S. Some global fashion brands, including Nike and H&M, have diversified their supply chains to Vietnam and Indonesia in recent years, but China remains a key production base. Nike produces about 18% of its shoes in China, and H&M also cites China and Bangladesh as its main suppliers.
However, it is possible that the claims of social media posts made by Chinese manufacturers are not true. Hermes denied the possibility of making a Birkin bag in China, saying that it is made 100 percent by artisans in France. Lululemon, on the other hand, said that only 3 percent of the finished products we sell are sold in China. Regardless of the authenticity of Chinese posts, however, the videos are already spreading rapidly through social media. This is because an increasing number of people are searching for names of famous brands and “China warehouse” together on TikTok and X. It is believed that the Chinese side is highly likely to be a high-level social media psychological warfare that seeks to antagonize U.S. consumers against the Trump administration’s tariff policy. Such social media tactics are being carried out by the public and the government. Chinese embassies abroad have also started to hit the U.S. through social media posts. The Chinese embassy in the U.S. posted two pictures on its official Facebook account on the 13th. Above, there is a picture of some 20 state-of-the-art high-speed trains, similar to KTX, lighting up and standing on the track with the words “China.” Below, it shows an old train just before being scrapped standing narrowly on a winding track with the words “USA.” The account shows the price tag of a red “MAGA” hat with a “Made in China” sticker recently increased by $27 due to tariffs, and a cartoon showing an American wearing an American flag destroying a domino with a Mexican and Canadian flag with a bat called “tariff” and eventually falling down.
Usually, there are promotional posts on the official account of the embassy emphasizing friendly relations with the people of the host country, but the U.S. Embassy in the U.S. posted a message saying that the U.S. will put itself in the foot with Trump’s tariff policy. China has raised its retaliatory tariff rate to 125% against the U.S. tariff bomb and said there will be no more retaliatory tariffs. However, some predict that it will use social media and other highly exposed measures to further promote the war of propaganda that will focus on the problems of Trump’s tariff policy to Americans.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
