H&M, Nike and other major Western apparel brands are facing a boycott in China for refusing to use cotton produced by forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. h&m released a statement saying the company manages its global supply chain openly and transparently and does not represent any political position.
The Chinese-born freelance journalist and author of Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods Amelia Pang, author of Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods, notes that Chinese officials are exploiting the patriotic sentiments of the public for their own political purposes.
I think many of them have lived their entire lives in an environment where there is only government-controlled media, which has profoundly shaped their worldview and reality,” she says. I understand why they reacted the way they did, but I also wish they had been open to different ideas.”
Amid previous similar controversies, the Chinese government has often demanded apologies from foreign companies over political issues. 2019 NBA Rockets GM Andy Murray tweeted support for protesters in Hong Kong, and the NBA was once boycotted by the Chinese public. International companies, including GAP, Marriott, and MAC, have been forced to apologize for printing maps of China that “lack” Taiwan or islands in the South China Sea.
Pang argues that Western governments should provide support for their companies and encourage them to resist human rights abuses and Chinese power. She told Voice of America, “One way to reduce forced labor in their supply chains is to provide tax breaks or tax incentives to companies to make them more transparent about where they source their purchases and their relationships with their foundries.”
This Monday, the U.S., EU, UK and Canada sanctioned China over Xinjiang, and this wave of official and popular boycotts in China is seen as a response to the sanctions. Cohen Stepp, EU policy coordinator for the World Uyghur Congress, said the joint sanctions are significant.
He said, “I think all these sanctions are a big step forward, not only because it’s the first concrete action taken by the EU to address genocide, but secondly, it’s also very crucial in terms of the global response to the crisis, that this is a really concerted step by the EU, the UK, Canada and also the US.”
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