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China has opened an investigation into PVH Corp., the U.S. parent company of fashion brands Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, for alleged discriminatory actions in refusing to buy cotton and other products from its northwest Xinjiang region, home to 12 million Uighurs.
Analysts said the move appears to be a retaliatory response by Beijing against companies that comply with U.S. laws banning the import of materials and products from Xinjiang suspected of using Uyghur forced labor.
“China is trying to retaliate against U.S. sanctions against the Xinjiang region by imposing its own sanctions on companies that follow U.S. sanctions,” said Anders Corr, director of New York-based political risk firm Corr Analytics. “This is a very bad idea.”
“Beijing is trying to tell Calvin Klein not to follow American law but to follow Chinese law,” he said.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday that PVH Corp. had to provide documents and evidence within 30 days demonstrating that it had not engaged in discriminatory practices over the past three years.
“The US PVH Group is suspected of violating normal market trade principles and unreasonably boycotting Xinjiang cotton and other products without factual basis, seriously harming the legitimate rights and interests of relevant Chinese enterprises and endangering China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said in a statement.
Earlier this month, China passed a resolution condemning a series of US sanctions against the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and providing support to affected companies.
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In response to the move, Alison Rappaport, PVH’s vice president of external communications, said the company strictly complies with the laws and regulations in force in the countries and regions where it operates.
“We are in communication with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and will respond in accordance with applicable regulations,” it said, without further comment.
Genocide
In 2021, the US government declared that China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang, including mass detentions, sterilization of women, forced labor, and cultural and religious erasure, amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity. Legislatures in several Western countries have adopted similar declarations.
To punish China and get it to change its policies, the United States and other countries have banned the importation of Xinjiang products made by Uyghur labor. About 90% of China’s cotton is produced in Xinjiang, most of which is exported.
Since June 2022, the U.S. government has blacklisted Chinese companies that manufacture products linked to forced labor in Xinjiang under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA.
The law also authorizes sanctions against foreign individuals and entities found responsible for human rights violations in the northwest region.
More than 80 companies are now on the Entity List.
Last May, the US Department of Homeland Security added 26 Chinese textile companies to the list of entities covered by the law, effectively barring them from accessing the US market.
Consequences
Henryk Szadziewski, research director at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, said China is using the move to retaliate against criticism of its policies in Xinjiang.
“This is really a message to multinational companies that they should not comply with sanctions and other types of prohibitions imposed on entities operating in Xinjiang,” he said. “This is undoubtedly a countermeasure to what is being done outside China. »
Still, multinational companies that adhere to U.S. sanctions and exclude forced labor products from their supply chains could face repercussions in China, Szadziewski said.
“If you want to operate in China, you really have to operate by their rules and not by those elsewhere,” he said.
Translated by RFA Uighur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.