Enterprising Chinese retailers were quick off the mark after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, with the first batch of T-shirts bearing an image of the former president pumping the air being printed and put up for sale online less than three hours after the shooting, the BBC reports.
A 25-year-old Taobao retailer told South China Morning Post that she received more than 2,000 orders for the T-shirts a mere three hours after she put them up for sale. Most were from China and the US.
However, the listings for these products were pulled off e-commerce platforms in China.
The BBC says It is unclear why the listings were taken down, but notes that the Chinese internet is heavily controlled, with content considered “sensitive” routinely taken down.
Similar T-shirts have been on sale on Lazada and Shopee, e-commerce platforms popular in South East Asia. Lazada is owned by the Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group, which also owns Taobao. Photographs online also show similar T-shirts for sale in the US.
The assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally last Saturday sparked widespread discussion online, with related hashtags trending high on X-like platform Weibo.
According to the BBC, Trump has been the source of online attention in China for years − for both positive and negative reasons.
The trade war he waged with Beijing during his presidency enraged the government and many Chinese people, but saw some support as well – including from a group of Chinese immigrants in the US who have been translating all of Trump’s tweets via the X account @Trump_Chinese.
There is also a popular online joke that plays on the Chinese translation of Trump, which is Chuan. He is often referred to as Chuan Jianguo which translates to “Trump − our nation builder”, a mocking reference to what many see as his role in helping set China on the path to becoming a superpower.
[Photo: Screenshot/Fox News]