Beijing

As former US president Donald Trump barely survived an assassination attempt Saturday (Jul 13) during a Pennsylvania rally, retailers in China were quick to convert this incident into a business opportunity. Within two hours, Chinese shops were inundated with T-shirts printed with images of a wounded Trump. Some of those carried words spoken by Trump immediately after the attack: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' and 'For God and country'. One T-shirt said, 'Shooting makes me stronger' with Trump's image right below it.

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Ironically, Chinese retailers were even quicker than US President Joe Biden in reacting to the incident. While Biden's first public comment came at 8 pm local time, two hours after the attack, Chinese shops had already received their first batch of Trump t-shirts by then.

Also read: Trump assassination attempt: It didn`t kill him, but will it make him stronger?

South China Morning Post (SCMP), a Hong-Kong based news outlet, quoted retailer Li Jinwei as saying, "We put the T-shirts on Taobao as soon as we saw the news about the shooting, though we hadn’t even printed them, and within three hours we saw more than 2,000 orders from both China and the US."

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Chinese sellers were able to monetise one of the most defining moments of US political history quickly using digital printing technology, which allowed the T-shirts to be printed and listed for sale very quickly.

As per reports, such digital printing machines can print 8 such T-shirts per hour.

Also read: Trump rally shooting: Witness recounts how man next to him was shot dead as former prez survived

The sale of election-related souvenirs has witnessed a rise this year, with data from Chinese cross-border e-commerce platform DHgate showing a growth of 40 per cent month-over-month since January. A whopping 110 per cent growth was witnessed in March only.

Following the attack, the Chinese government on Sunday expressed its concern over Trump's safety. A statement by the Chinese foreign ministry said, "President Xi Jinping has expressed his condolences to former President Trump."

(With inputs from agencies)