Walmart is struggling with a public outcry in China after the country’s netizens accused the company of failing to stock products from China’s Xinjiang region, where the government has imprisoned large numbers of the Turkic Uyghur minority.
On the face of it, this is nothing new: Foreign companies in China have faced periodic boycotts for years. But that fact conceals profound changes in the political and economic environment in China. If they persist, longstanding assumptions about consumer companies’ need to invest in China—or be left behind globally—could start to unravel.
