Chinese authorities appear to be getting a bit hot under the collar over a ‘revolutionary’ line of T-shirts with designs depicting US president Barack Obama in a Red Guard outfit associated with Chairman Mao Zedong.
Merchandise with the iconic ‘Oba-Mao’ design, which also made it to bags and coin pouches, have disappeared from store shelves in Beijing ahead of Obama’s visit to China later this week, although they were selling briskly for months, according to local media reports.
Store and street side vendors were quoted as saying that Beijing authorities directed them not to sell these items, but gave no reason. The Oba-Mao icon was the handwork of Beijing-based designer Liu Mingjie, who says he was not making any political point but was only looking to cash in on the popularity in China of two leaders from two different countries and eras — Obama and Mao.
Items bearing the Oba-Mao image were favoured both by Chinese and foreign tourists, he claims. Tourists from the US, where conservative Republicans have branded Obama, among other things, a Communist for his administration’s economic policies, were particularly drawn to it, he adds.
So popular has the product line been that Liu says he was looking to launch an ‘Oba-Mao’ underwear line for Christmas, but those plans look uncertain in the light of the latest ‘clampdown’. Liu says that at his friends’ urging, he even arranged for a complimentary Oba-Mao T-shirt to be delivered to Obama at the White House, but isn’t sure if it was well-received (or even received).
Obama has something of a ‘rock star’ following in China, and advertisements for everything from real estate to Blackberry knock-offs bear his photographs to suggest presidential ‘endorsement’. A English-tutorial publishing house has even reproduced Obama’s speeches — from his election campaign last year to his inauguration as president in January — for students to learn from his diction and delivery.
Chinese authorities have in recent days been trying to tamp down on heightened expectations from Obama’s first visit to China as president. Observers say that US authorities are in talks with Chinese interlocutors to see if Obama can address ‘townhall’, meetings of Chinese youngsters, but that Chinese officials are not very enthusiastic about this proposal.
Chinese officials also want Obama to publicly ‘endorse’ Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, but US authorities disfavour such a proposal. China welcomed Obama’s declining to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama when he was in Washington last month, but is nevertheless wary that Obama might him in the future.
