Chinese label pulls clothing line over designs; Ex liquor giant head jailed by AFP Staff Writers Beijing (AFP) Sept 24, 2021 A Chinese fashion label has pulled a children's clothing line and apologised after consumer complaints surfaced about prints that contained references to racial violence and suggestive phrases including "let me touch you". The designs by JNBY, widely shared on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, prompted outrage and criticism among users who said that the designs were unsuitable for impressionable youngsters. One photo showed an item with the English words: "The whole place is full of Indians. I will take this gun and blow them to pieces," while another had cartoons of a boy being shot with multiple arrows. "What is JNBY trying to express with such prints?" one social media commenter wrote. "I used to like their adult's clothing, but didn't expect their children's line to be so sinister!" JNBY apologised on Thursday, saying that it received complaints involving products with "inappropriate patterns" on its children's apparel line. "We have immediately pulled all the related product series from our shelves, revoked relevant publicity material, and set up a specialised group to investigate internally," the brand said in a statement on Weibo. JNBY, a popular designer label founded in 1994 and headquartered in Hangzhou, added that it had also opened channels for refunds and apologised to buyers. It reported net profits of around 624 million yuan ($96.6 million) for the most recent financial year. Many users were unmoved by JNBY's expression of remorse. "This is not a problem that can be solved with an apology," one argued. A parent wrote that older family members who didn't speak English had bought the clothing for their child without understanding the meanings. "As such a big company, JNBY, who checks your material?" the shocked parent wrote.
Ex-head of Chinese liquor giant Moutai jailed for life for bribery Yuan Renguo, 64, was found guilty of accepting cash and properties worth more than 112.9 million yuan ($17.5 million) while working at Kweichow Moutai between 1994 and 2018, according to a court statement on Thursday. The court stripped Yuan -- a former Communist Party cadre and local government advisory group member -- of his political rights, and confiscated his personal property. Yang is the latest high-profile businessman and Communist Party figure to fall in President Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption campaign. He was dismissed from public office and expelled from the party on corruption allegations in May 2019. An investigation by the party's graft buster found Yuan had engaged in "family-style corruption" and facilitated the illegal sale of Moutai for unscrupulous dealers. Kweichow Moutai leapt past London-based Diageo in 2017 to become the world's most valuable spirits company. The company's fiery tipple, "baijiu", is the largest category of spirits consumed in the world, mainly due to China's huge population and the drink's ubiquity at weddings, banquets and business meetings in the country. Xi's anti-corruption campaign, launched in 2012, has hit baijiu sales particularly hard as bottles of premium brands like Moutai had become a popular gift for charming or bribing Communist Party officials. The company's share price remained unaffected by the ruling and stood at 1,652 yuan, up 0.92 percent in Thursday morning trade.
Iron curtain falls on Hong Kong cinema as censors demand cuts Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 21, 2021 Once renowned for world-class cinema, Hong Kong's film industry was already struggling before the latest hurdle - Chinese mainland-style censorship as authorities take their purge of dissent into the cultural sphere. Filmmaker Mok Kwan-ling's heart sank when the email from the government censors dropped. In June, authorities announced all films would now be scrutinised for "national security" breaches. Mok's was the first known to have fallen foul of these rules. For months, she had been p ... read more
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