Tesla opens a store in Xinjiang; Musk labelled as a supporter of ‘human genocide’
Tesla has stirred up controversy in the US by opening a showroom in China’s controversial Xinjiang region. Tesla opened the showroom in the city of Urumqi on New year’s eve. Xinjiang has gained notoriety for alleged slavery and genocide of the Uighur muslim minority group. However, the move to open a store has been welcomed mostly by the Chinese people. While depending on your personal political perspective, you could argue for or against the political move, we will try to argue that Tesla need not be threatened from a brand/business perspective.
One of the, if not the only goal, of a business/brand is to make profits. And, whether one likes it or not , China is a booming consumer market. China’s consumer market will soon outpace that of the American and European market. So, it makes perfect sense for Tesla to open a market in one of the world’s fastest booming economies. Moreover, Xinjiang itself is of high economic interest to China. In the last few years, China’s central government has poured more than 2 trillion yuan( US $310 billion) into Xinjiang. Central government’s injection alone accounts for more than 30 percent of the region’s GDP ( SOURCE: Xinhua News agency). So, from a purely business perspective, Tesla has nothing but to win from opening its store in the region.
Before we get into the moral dilemma that Tesla could have faced before making its decision to open a store, let us talk about the hypocrisy of the Western consumers. While there might be some moral weightage to their criticism of Tesla, most of the consumer goods they buy, often by being appealed to the price point of the product, are manufactured in poor developing nations like Bangladesh, Philippines and regions in Latin America and Africa. Had they put the same moral weightage to their own buying habits, their workers back home would not have been unemployed. Consumers choosing to buy cheap products from manufacturers that exploit workers from low wage countries have forced shutdowns of many industries in the Midwest/ rust belt America. Ergo, the outcry over a business expanding its market is not just hypocritical but outright idiotic.
China’s excesses with human rights in the Xinjiang region is common knowledge. That does not make average Chinese consumers complicit in the same. Besides, Tesla is not the only company doing business with China. Multiple American manufacturers like Apple( actually known for profiteering by exploiting starvation wages provided by its local manufacturers) are in fact churning billions off the Chinese production and consumer market. Tesla opening its store in Xinjiang is simply expanding its market to more consumers.
Unless some ideologue can come out and say, with proof, that each and every consumer is complicit in human rights abuse in Xinjiang, limiting the reach of average consumers is the actual unethical thing to do. Tesla, as a brand, could counter this PR nightmare by making the above said arguments. While an idealist world would be perfect, political ideologies do not make a brand. In fact, they provide no benefits to the consumers either.
Ideology does not run a life; living life does. We are currently living in one of the most divisive times. Exponential growth in social media has turned extremes into the mainstream. We have become quick to judge and ‘cancel’. The irony in this ‘cancel culture’ is that we have set out to destroy what we claim to build, i.e. liberty of life, ideologies and business. The fact that we pour our selective criticisms like the one Tesla is facing right now through our beloved ‘iphones’ without caring about the unethical exploitation of laborers used to manufacture it, speaks to the hypocrisy of the confused liberatis. In this quest for a ‘liberal’ idealist world, in fact we have become illiberal.
So, as a brand unless Tesla is exploiting cheap laborers or ‘enslaved’ Uighurs from Xinjiang to run their ‘showroom’, expanding its market to more consumers should be totally fine. And for you ideologues out there, who might want to ‘cancel’ this author for expressing his opinion, please take the following perspective in your action:
IF THE BUYING STOPS, EXPLOITATION STOPS TOO!
