China: No evidence of forced labour in Xinjiang cotton industry

China strongly rejected accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang on Monday and called for boycotts against foreign firms including retailer H&M and Nike. The Swedish retailer's decision to stop buying cotton from Xinjiang over forced labor sparked a backlash against H&M products following calls by state media for a boycott.

By Friday, H&M products were missing from major e-commerce platforms including Alibaba and JD.com. That hurts H&M's ability to reach customers in a country where more than a fifth of shopping is online. Shockwaves spread to other brands as dozens of celebrities called off endorsement deals with Nike, Adidas, Burberry, Uniqlo and Lacoste after state media criticised the brands for expressing concern about Xinjiang.

Elijan Anayat, who is a spokesperson of the Information Office in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, believed that companies which made the accusations would "lose the Chinese market." However, he praised footwear company Skechers for rejecting the claims. In a statement issued earlier this month, Skechers said audits of their factory, Dong Guan Lu Zhou Shoes, had not revealed "any indications of the use of forced labor, either of Uyghurs or any other ethnic or religious group."

The company also said that members of the Uyghur ethnic minority are "employed on the same terms and conditions as all other factory employees and in particular with respect to working conditions," and that they are free to leave if they no longer wanted to work at the company.

More than 1 million members of the Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities have been confined to detention camps in Xinjiang, according to foreign governments and researchers. Authorities there are accused of imposing forced labor and coercive birth control measures. The Chinese government rejects complaints of abuses and says the camps are for job training to support economic development and combat Islamic radicalism.