First the vuvuzela, now the keffiyeh.
China's reputation as the world's factory captured worldwide attention during last summer's World Cup as makers of the vuvuzela - the plastic noise-making trumpet that South African soccer fans love. Today, the mainland has garnered a virtual monopoly on the symbol of the Palestinian liberation movement.
The keffiyeh, the signature headscarf worn by late Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, is a handicraft indigenous to his people. But now, only one Palestinian factory is left making them, the owners say, because the low cost of Chinese production has put them out of business.
'We have so many problems with the Chinese keffiyeh,' said Talal Hirbawi, a member of the family that owns Hirbawi Textiles, the last Palestinian keffiyeh factory. Established in 1963, the Hebron-based business is nearly as old as the Palestinian struggle itself.
Hirbawi used to sell about 20,000 keffiyeh in its heyday in the mid-1990s, when Arafat visited the factory personally to buy its scarves, made by roughly three dozen local Palestinians.
Since Chinese keffiyeh production started growing about 10 years ago, the Hirbawi operation has shrunk significantly.
Now the factory employs only one non-family worker and sells 1,000 to 2,000 keffiyeh a year.