T-shirts with slogans like "Free Hong Kong, Democracy Now" on Amazon's website Photo: a screenshot of the Amazon website

Chinese netizens have called for a boycott of US online retail giant Amazon. They have demanded that it leave China immediately as it failed to remove offensive T-shirts supporting the violent protests in Hong Kong from its shelves, even after it issued a statement acknowledging the "one country, two systems" principle.

After Amazon was found to be selling T-shirts with images and slogans like, "Free Hong Kong, Democracy Now," to support the violent protests and secessionist movement in Hong Kong this week, the company sent the Global Times a statement on Friday, which said that it has always, and will continue to, acknowledge the longstanding and widely-recognized policy of "one country, two systems." It said that it will continue to respect local laws wherever they do business. 

However, the related T-shirts could still be found for sale on Amazon's website on Friday. Some of the black T-shirts on the website feature yellow umbrellas, the symbol of the secessionist movement in Hong Kong. 

Amazon's move frustrated many Chinese netizens, who demanded that it apologize sincerely on all its social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and seriously punish employees and retailers for selling such T-shirts. 

Amazon's hypocritical statement reached Weibo's "hot topic" list on Friday afternoon, with nearly 100 million views as of press time. 

Many enraged netizens also flooded the commentary section of Amazon's official Weibo account, demanding that it leave China. Some even called on Chinese people to cancel their memberships on the site and boycott it. 

Zhejiang-based Ningbo Furniture Chamber of Commerce, which was scheduled to hold a houseware-purchasing event with Amazon by the end of August, announced on Friday that it would cease all work and affairs related to the event.

The incident came amid the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's ongoing chaos, with rioters and secessionists incited and staging violence and riots across the city. The situation has been ongoing for about two months, and has been strongly denounced by the Chinese public including Hong Kong residents.

Amazon is the latest e-commerce company to come under fire in China for products and actions that many Chinese people see as disrespectful to China's sovereignty and, in turn, Chinese consumers. Fashion brands such as Versace, Givenchy and Coach have been facing backlash after listing Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as countries independent of China.

Global Times