China Boycotts Western Companies Over Uyghurs
The Chinese government is boycotting Western clothing retailers for expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, China’s biggest region.
China Boycotts Western Companies Over Uyghurs
Soeren Kern | Gatestone Institute | April 8, 2021
The Chinese government is boycotting Western clothing retailers for expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, China’s biggest region. The companies are being pressured to scrub from their websites language about corporate policies on human rights, reverse decisions to stop buying cotton produced in Xinjiang, and remove maps that depict Taiwan as an independent country.
The escalating fight comes after the European Union and the United Kingdom on March 22 joined the United States and Canada to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China.
Human rights experts say at least one million Muslims are being detained in up to 380 internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations.
Western companies doing business in China increasingly face an unpalatable dilemma: how to uphold Western values and distance themselves from human rights abuses without provoking retaliation from the Chinese government and losing access to one of the world’s biggest and fastest-growing markets.
