China has announced it is investigating the company that owns US fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein for suspected "discriminatory measures" against Xinjiang cotton companies. The move marks a new effort by Beijing to fight back against allegations from western officials and human rights activists that cotton and other goods in the region have been produced using forced labour from the Uyghur ethnic group. The US banned imports from the area in 2021, citing those concerns.
China's Ministry of Commerce accused the firm of "boycotting Xinjiang cotton and other products without any factual basis". PVH, which owns the two brands and has a significant presence in China as well as the US, did not respond to a request for comment. It has it complies with laws in the regions where it does business, including the US Xinjiang law.
It has 30 days to respond to the Chinese authorities, at which point it could be added to the country's "unreliable entities" list, raising the prospect of further punishment. On Wednesday, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce official denied that the probe was linked to . "China has always handled the issue of the unreliable entity list prudently, targeting only a very small number of foreign entities that undermine market rules and violate Chinese laws," they said.
"Honest and law-abiding foreign entities have nothing to worry about." Cullen Hendrix, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, said it was not clear exactly what .