China could know US election result first — thanks to fake merchandise

A small city in eastern China could provide an early insight into who will win November’s presidential election through sales of campaign merchandise.

Yiwu is home to one of the world’s largest wholesale marketplaces, where global retailers hunt for low-cost items to fill their shelves.

Replica campaign paraphernalia from Chinese merchants there has been flooding both online and street vendors, competing against sales of more expensive official merchandise in the United States.

The deluge of cut-price items has spawned what Chinese watchers of American politics have dubbed the “Yiwu Index”.

In 2016, the index correctly predicted a Donald Trump victory, a forecast which went against the conventional wisdom of expert pollsters and bookmakers.

While Hillary Clinton was shown to have a runaway lead in the polls going into the final weeks of the campaign, sales of her merchandise at the Yiwu market were starting to drop off.

The theory goes that Trump’s stronger sales compared with those of his rivals was enough to predict his shock election victory.

“When everybody was saying that the Democrats, Hilary Clinton, was going to win, the index suggested otherwise,” Zoe Liu Zongyuan, of the US-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said.

“It’s not the Chinese who are buying this stuff, it’s the Americans, the delegations, the rallies, those people, who buy it. Could that be an indicator for how passionate people or voters are? That’s a better way to understand it.”

China’s government will be using the theory to closely monitor the election given the recent tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Both Trump and his rival, Kamala Harris, have promised anti-China policies, but the Republican, while in the White House, led a trade war on the Communist state’s exports.

Not a science

Despite its accuracy in 2016, the Yiwu Index is by no means scientific, and it has shown its vulnerabilities in predicting election results since.

The city’s international trade centre — a sprawling network of 70,000 stalls spread across 12 floors — rarely sells directly to consumers.

Its business relies on wholesale commerce with companies looking to cash in on the popularity of campaign merchandise as the election date draws closer.

Mass orders from people supplying tourist vendors are common in anticipation of soaring demand.

Supporters of Trump are also considered more likely to display their allegiances through campaign merchandise.

His “Make America Great Again” baseball caps have become a totemic item to demonstrate a voter’s backing.

However, demand did recently soar for a camouflage Harris campaign cap, enough so that the entire first run of the item sold out within 30 minutes of going on sale.

“Imagine a scenario where you have a Trump neighbour versus a Democrat neighbour, the Trump voters are more likely to show their Maga [Make America Great Again] stuff,” Ms Zongyuan said.

“Democrats, people who vote independently, or the undecided, are less likely to spend money to buy those things. So I would say because voter behaviour has changed, the way they show their enthusiasm has changed, the Yiwu Index may no longer be an accurate indicator.”

This was demonstrated in 2020 when sales of Chinese-made Trump merchandise outstripped those items supporting his rival candidate Joe Biden, who went on to claim victory.