The New York Times Chinese Edition recently published an in-depth report on the campaign product sales level now widely recognized as the unofficial political indicator named the “Yiwu Index.” The NYT reporter visited the unusual markets in the Chinese town of Yiwu, where the world’s largest wholesalers of small goods are located. According to some wholesalers who were willing to talk to American media, Trump’s campaign products, from hats and banners to cups – anything that can have a logo printed on it – are selling crazily, while Biden products have nearly no orders. Sales person Ge Lu, who represents around 100 flag wholesalers, said he has received four or five Trump flag orders (per month) with each order buying thousands of flags. However, for the whole year, only one buyer has asked about Biden flags. Ms. Dai, who manufactures hats, has sold tens of thousands of Trump hats and a few thousand of Biden’s. Halloween product wholesaler Gigi Zhang has sold out all his Trump masks and so far no one has bought a single Biden mask. Yiwu has an annual small goods sales level of US$60 billion, with 70,000 wholesalers. It correctly predicted the 2016 U.S. presidential election outcome, among other elections in various countries. All Yiwu Index believers are confident about a Trump win.
The Chinese government has applied controls on displaying political campaign product samples.
Source: New York Times Chinese, October 28, 2020
https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20201028/trump-china-election/