Western fashion brands, including Nike and H&M, faced calls for a boycott in China on Thursday, while Beijing resisted with increasing ferocity allegations of human rights abuses against the country’s Uighur Muslim minority.
The United States announced in January that it would suspend all cotton imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang – one of the main global suppliers of the material – because of forced labor issues, while large retailers have already issued statements expressing their concerns.
In the wake of new Western sanctions earlier this week against officials responsible for the region in the northwest of the country, these corporate statements have resurfaced on Chinese social media and have been met with fury.
State-controlled media and online users criticized the two brands, with German sportswear giant Adidas and the American brand Tommy Hilfiger also being criticized.
“For companies that achieve our country’s financial results, the answer is very clear: don’t buy!” China Central Television said in its social media account.
Many users also adhered to boycott orders, urging local retailers to buy domestic stock.
The hashtag #ISupportXJCotton – created by the state newspaper People’s Daily – generated more than 2 million ‘likes’ on Thursday on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
The decline also continued offline, with Chinese celebrities quickly disassociating themselves from brands and signing sponsorship deals.
Popular actor Wang Yibo has terminated his contract with Nike, his agency said in a statement published on Weibo on Thursday.
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The reaction seemed to start when the Communist Party’s Youth League drew attention on Wednesday to a statement initially issued by the Swedish company H&M last year.
It also prompted users to look for statements previously issued by other foreign retailers in Xinjiang.
The H&M Group’s original statement said it was “deeply concerned by reports from civil society organizations and the media that include accusations of forced labor and discrimination against ethnic-religious minorities in Xinjiang”.
The company said on Thursday that “At this point we have nothing more to share” and directed NBC News to the statement.
Nike’s statement is undated and says, “We are concerned about reports of forced labor in the Uighur autonomous region of Xinjiang. Nike does not supply XUAR products and we confirm with our contracted suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarns from the region. “
Nike did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
However, in a statement posted on its official Weibo page on Wednesday, H&M China said the global company had always managed its supply chain in an “open and transparent manner” and did not “represent any political position”.
“The H&M Group continues to respect the Chinese consumer. We are committed to long-term investment and development in China,” said the statement.
As the world’s second largest economy and home to 1.4 billion people, Chinese purchasing power is strong.
“This is not the first time that this kind of nationalist reaction against a foreign company has taken place,” said Xin Sun, professor of business in China and East Asia at the Lau China Institute at King’s College London.
Chinese consumers had already launched strong boycotts of goods from Japan, South Korea and the United States in the past decade, he said, often with “unofficial and implicit” support from the ruling Communist Party.
But with the Uighurs issue a hot flash point and tensions between Washington and Beijing showing no signs of abating, Sun said it was getting more complicated for Western brands to operate in both markets.
“They try to respond to the growing scrutiny of Western customers and people about their supply chains,” he told NBC News.
“They are walking a very fine line between the western market and, of course, the Chinese market is too big for them, but you see political pressure from all directions.”
The latest reaction came shortly after sanctions were issued against Chinese authorities on Monday by the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada. Beijing retaliated with its own sanctions, but it has also stepped up public efforts to curb accusations of irregularities in Xinjiang.
A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Gao Feng, said on Thursday that the charges of forced labor in Xinjiang were “completely untrue”, urging foreign companies to “correct their mistakes and prevent commercial activities from becoming issues. policies “.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said at a news conference on Thursday that the “strong reaction from Chinese Internet users” spoke for themselves and that the Chinese people had a right to express their feelings and “if oppose malicious attacks on China based on rumors and lies. “
She also displayed photos at the daily media briefing of blacks harvesting cotton in the United States, comparing them to a second photograph of people smiling in cotton fields in Xinjiang.
Is it over there tweeted similar images.
More than 1 million Uighur Muslims are believed to be held in internment camps in the region, where they are forced to study Marxism, renounce their religion, work in factories and face abuse, according to human rights groups and first-hand reports. Uighurs hand.
Beijing refers to the centers as “re-education camps” and says they offer vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.
The United States has labeled China’s practices in the area of ”genocide”, which Beijing rejects.
Isabel Wang, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed.