Dried Mangoes from Cebu (Photo : Taobao)
Chinese vendors have found a way to get back at the Philippines which won on Tuesday the arbitration case over South China Sea islands it brought before the U.N. Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
Global Times reported that a growing number of Chinese vendors in Taobao, a major online shopping platform in China under the Alibaba Group, are boycotting the sale of Philippine dried mangoes from Cebu. The boycott includes other snacks from the Philippines.
A 500-gram pack of dried mangoes from Cebu sells for around 30 yuan. About 30 percent of Taobao vendors joined the boycott on dried mangoes from the Philippines, including online sellers based in Fujian and Shandong Provinces in east China.
BBC reported that the anger toward Philippine products is also felt in Chinese social media, especially in microblogging site Weibo. Among the slogans posted are calls to buy mangoes from Thailand instead.
Some posts are more direct, such as “If you love China, don’t buy Filipino imports.” Another one carried the same message in a roundabout way, saying “I will eat Guangxi dried mango, drink Yunna coffee and eat durian from Hainan. Anyway the point is, I’m making sure my money stays in China.” But one was downright angry, saying, “Starve the Filipinos to death.”
According to Businessdiary, China is not a leading importer of mango products from the Philippines. The bulk are exported to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and the U.S., but China is included in the 21 countries that import Philippine dried mangoes. About half of the exports are fresh mango and the remaining half processed products, of which more than 50 percent are puree.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that for the first three quarters of 2014, the country earned $20.38 million from mango exports, but it went down by 38 percent to $12.71 million for the same period in 2015.
