China’s outright boycott against Lotte Group has begun immediately after the Korean conglomerate has signed a land swap deal with the South Korean government for the installation of U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile battery on Tuesday.

JD.com, China’s second-biggest e-commerce site, wiped off a section dedicated to Lotte Mart products Tuesday, as well as some of Korean brand products from its site. Seemingly retaliatory measures of the Chinese online retailer in the aftermath of Lotte’s provision of land for THAAD system wouldn’t be of a big blow to Korean firm as its daily revenue averaged at only around 10,000 yuan ($1,454).

But such a hostile action taken by the private sector certainly raises concerns over whether Lotte would be able to maintain its business in China where it is estimated to have invested more than 10 trillion won ($8.76 billion) since 1994. Currently 22 Lotte affiliates, including Lotte Department store and Lotte Confectionery, operate across China with 26,000 employees.

Since the signing of the land swap deal on Tuesday, the general public in China have been also venting out their anger at Lotte on Lotte Duty Free store’s official Weibo - China’s Twitter clone - account, bombarding more than 20,000 comments such as “Leave China.”

Lotte’s Chinese website has been down suddenly as of Tuesday, due to an external virus attack, according to a company official.

According to Lotte Duty Free, its official website in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English, as well as its mobile apps have been also down since noon on Tuesday, a move that is suspected as retaliatory measures against Lotte by China.

State-run Chinese tabloid Global Times insisted Wednesday in an editorial “Chinese consumers should become the main force in teaching Seoul a lesson, punishing the nation through the power of the market.” The media went as far as encouraging Chinese consumers to “sanction” other popular South Korean retailers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co, apart from Lotte Group.

The newspaper also published an interview with Song Zhongping, a military expert at the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force, warning that “Seongju county will appear on the list of the PLA missile system’s strike targets,” once the THAAD system is deployed.

The latest boycott threats comes after the Chinese government has constantly expressed its dissatisfaction with Seoul’s decision to host the powerful U.S. antimissile system in a golf course owned by Lotte in Seongju, southeast of Seoul in September, slamming trade deals on Korean businesses as well as entertainers in protest to Seoul’s decision. The missile deployment plan has been struck with strong opposition from Beijing and Moscow, especially Beijing, which raised concerns about its own military intelligence and infrastructure falling on the U.S. radar.

The Korean government has been pushing ahead with the plan, citing Pyongyang’s steady feeds of provocations such as nuclear tests and long-range missile launch as a major threat to the country.

As of 2:40 p.m. on Thursday, shares of Lotte Confectionery were trading down 3.1 percent, or 6,000 won, at 189,500 won from a previous session and Lotte Shopping plunged 7.6 percent, or 17,500 won, to 213,500 won.

By Park Man-won

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]