Chinese e-commerce platforms have removed T-shirts depicting Donald Trump raising his fist in the air shortly after he was shot.
The T-shirts went on sale just hours after the shooting and were available on popular e-commerce sites like Taobao and JD.com.
It is unclear why these lists were taken down, but the Chinese internet is tightly controlled, with content deemed “sensitive” routinely taken down.
The attempted assassination at a protest in Pennsylvania last Saturday sparked widespread discussion online, with related hashtags trending high on the X-like Weibo platform.
Innovative Chinese retailers were quick to act, printing and selling the first batch of T-shirts online less than three hours after the shooting.
An image posted on Taobao, one of China’s largest e-commerce sites, shows the T-shirt priced at 39 yuan ($9; £7).
A 25-year-old Taobao seller told the South China Morning Post that she had received more than 2,000 orders for the T-shirts in just three hours since she put them up for sale, mostly from China and the United States.
Trump has been the focus of online attention in China for years — for both positive and negative reasons.
The trade war he waged with Beijing during his presidency has angered the Chinese government and many people, but also won support — including a group of Chinese immigrants in the United States who translate all of Trump’s tweets. via X account @Trump_ChineseThe account was created in September 2018 and has attracted more than 344,000 followers over the years.
There is also a popular online joke about Trump’s Chinese translation – Chuan. He is often referred to as Chuan Jianguo, which means “Trump – the builder of our nation” as a way of mocking what they see as his role in helping put China on the path to superpower status.
Chinese businessmen have been cashing in on his interest for years now.
Although listings for T-shirts featuring Trump after the shooting have been removed from China, online retailers there are still selling a variety of Trump-related merchandise, including socks and mugs with his caricature, and red baseball caps emblazoned with his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Retailers around the world have also capitalized on the assassination.
Similar T-shirts have been sold on Lazada and Shopee, popular e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.
Lazada is owned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group, which also owns Taobao.
Photos online also show similar T-shirts being sold in the United States. Some have captions added — one reads “Leaders Never Die,” while another reads “Bullet Proof.”
