[The intense response reflects the stakes at hand. Protracted economic sanctions on Xinjiang — the heart of China’s cotton production — could permanently reroute some supply chains out of China. The Xinjiang crackdown, which the U.S. State Department has declared “genocide,” also threatens to become a defining part of President Xi Jinping’s historical legacy.]
By Eva Dou
SEOUL — Boycotts. Threats of lawsuits. Travel bans for scholars' families.
Beijing is stepping up its pressure
campaign on Western multinationals and academics who raised concern about
ethnic oppression in China’s northwest Xinjiang region.
Xinjiang officials warned
international companies in a news conference on Monday to be careful of
blowback, after state media fanned calls to boycott H&M, Nike and
other brands that have shied away from Xinjiang cotton because of elevated risk
of forced labor in the region.
“When you swing the big stick of
sanctions at Xinjiang companies, you will also hit yourself,” said Xu Guixiang,
a spokesman for the Xinjiang region’s government. “We hope that more companies
like H&M will keep their eyes open and distinguish right from wrong.”
[China
attacks foreign clothing, shoe brands over Xinjiang]
Beijing has been seeking to control
the domestic narrative over Xinjiang, flooding social media platforms for days
with official media posts defending the work conditions there, calls to boycott
Western fashion brands and cartoons depicting pre-Civil War slavery in the U.S.
South.
China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying has posted primarily about Xinjiang in recent days, with a dozen tweets defending
its cotton industry and criticizing U.S. policies on Muslims since Sunday.
The intense response reflects the
stakes at hand. Protracted economic sanctions on Xinjiang — the heart of
China’s cotton production — could permanently reroute some supply chains out of
China. The Xinjiang crackdown, which the U.S. State Department has declared “genocide,”
also threatens to become a defining part of President Xi Jinping’s historical
legacy.
Deborah Mayersen, an Australian
expert in genocide prevention, said Beijing’s threats to Western companies were
directed at a domestic audience as much as the foreign one, with senior
officials seeking to project legitimacy at home in the face of sanctions.
“China is trying to win a
propaganda war at home,” she said.
China’s Xinjiang policies prompted the European Union to impose on March 22
its first sanctions on China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The
E.U. was joined by the United States, Britain and Canada, in
a coordinated approach.
Beijing has struck back steadily
since then, first with sanctions on officials in the E.U. and Britain. Over the
weekend, it added several U.S. and Canadian officials: Gayle
Manchin, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; the
commission’s vice chair, Tony Perkins; Canadian Parliament member Michael
Chong; and an international human rights subcommittee of Canada’s House of
Commons.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken condemned Beijing’s reaction on Saturday: “Beijing’s
attempts to silence criticism of serious human rights abuse in Xinjiang only
contributes to growing international scrutiny.”
China also extended its sanctions
to academic scholars, raising concerns that the campaign would have a chilling
effect on research. The Mercator Institute for China Studies, which is the
largest European think tank focused on China, and Newcastle University
anthropologist Joanne Smith Finley were targeted by Beijing last week.
By Sunday, more than 400 scholars
had signed a letter of support for Finley.
“The Chinese Communist Party has
long used covert attempts to silence critics outside its territory, but these
overt new measures against academics are a serious escalation,” said the letter
they signed, published in the British newspaper the Times.
Chinese state media have also reported that unspecified Xinjiang companies were
planning to sue Adrian Zenz, a prominent U.S.-based Xinjiang researcher.
Human rights activists issued calls
over the weekend for fashion brands to resist caving in to China’s threats of
boycott. Human Rights Watch said Inditex, the parent company of Zara; PVH, parent
company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein; and VF, parent company of the North
Face and JanSport, have all since removed statements on Xinjiang.
Pei Lin Wu in Taipei, Taiwan,
contributed to this report.
Read more
China’s
state media outlets call for boycott of H&M for avoiding Xinjiang cotton
China
scrubs evidence of Xinjiang clampdown amid ‘genocide’ debate
Academic
faces Chinese lawsuit for exposing human rights abuses in Xinjiang
