Shirts that portrayed Obama in a Mao cap and jacket sold like hotcakes in China ahead of President Obama’s 2009 visit. The T-shirts were considered “witty and cool” in Beijing, but the government banned them out of fear of offending the US president.
The “Obamao” shirt portrayed Obama in revolutionary fashion, in a nod to his supposedly Communist politics – at least, according to his critics in the United States. Sales were strong among American right-wingers and Chinese teens and young adults, two groups unlikely to unite over just about anything else.
