© Provided by Washington Examiner Nike and other Western companies that condemn the reported use of forced labor in Xinjiang's cotton fields now face boycotts in China, punitive measures supported by the Chinese communist government.
"The Chinese people wouldn't allow foreigners to reap benefits in China on the one hand and smear China on the other," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters, according to a transcript.
The controversy is the latest iteration of an intensifying international dispute over Beijing's repression of Uyghur Muslims, policies that Chinese officials variously have denied or justified as counterterrorism measures. Yet, the boycott also reflects an emerging theme of Chinese diplomacy, as the communist regime feels confident in asserting a rival concept of human rights at the expense of Western mores - even while trying to seduce European powers away from U.S. initiatives to condemn Beijing.
"The U.S. and its allies combined only account for 10% of the world's population," Hua added. "U.S. values do not equate international value, and U.S.-style democracy is not universal democracy."
'MODERN-DAY SLAVERY': CHINESE COMMUNISTS SEND UYGHUR CAMP DETAINEES TO OTHER REGIONS
China's defiant response to U.S. and European support for Uyghur rights has eased in the early days of President Joe Biden's administration and American efforts to improve transatlantic cooperation regarding the Asian power.
"The biggest problem for Beijing is its own policy," said the American Enterprise Institute's Zack Cooper, a China expert who has worked at the Defense Department and White House. "And the more that those policies become the focus, the more that China is going to struggle. And, in many ways, the more that will drive our European friends towards positions that are more in line with American positions."
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas condemned Beijing for imposing retaliatory sanctions on European individuals and entities after Western governments blacklisted the officials overseeing the Uyghur repression. "While we sanction abuses of human rights, Beijing sanctions democracy," he said. "We cannot accept this."
Chinese state media outlets, notwithstanding that rebuke, expanded the controversy by publishing a list of Western clothing corporations that have "cut ties" with Xinjiang's cotton industry. "This included the Better Cotton Initiative members Burberry, Adidas, Nike, New Balance and others," the People's Daily wrote on social media, according to the South China Morning Post. "Online users have said the Chinese market does not welcome malicious back-stabbers."
Hua amplified that message. "My feeling is that people are eager to see China sanction countries that undermined China's interests and dignity," she said. "The EU, on the basis of lies and disinformation, imposed unilateral sanctions on Chinese individuals and entity by using human rights issue in Xinjiang as a pretext."
Uyghur Muslim women who endured the detention camps have described being subjected to rape with regularity. Other activists have reported that Beijing is using "mass rape" to forge "ethnic unity" through a "program in which Han Chinese men are sent to China's western region of Xinjiang to live with Uyghur women, many of whose husbands have been sent to prison camps."
State Department officials have accused Chinese communist authorities of trying to eradicate Uyghur Muslim identity in favor of an ethnic and ideological homogeneity. "The goal is to 'Sinicize' and otherwise exert greater party control over Islam and other religions," then-U.S. Ambassador Kelley Currie, who served during Donald Trump's presidency as a senior diplomat at the United Nations and to international organizations in Geneva, said in 2019.
Chinese officials justify the Uyghur repression as a method of eradicating potential terrorist threats, which they argue makes it a defense of human rights - collectively, if not individually.
"The people's interests are where the human rights cause starts and ends," Hua said. "China adheres to the people-centered philosophy of human rights, and makes increasing people's sense of gains, happiness, and security as the fundamental pursuit of human rights as well as the ultimate goal of national governance."
Her emphatic repudiation of Western criticism sharpens the philosophical contrast between Washington and Beijing, contributing to the ideological rivalry that has come to the fore in recent years.
"The Chinese Communist Party is saying they have a legitimate system for the rest of the world to emulate," then-Ambassador Sam Brownback said last year. "And we are saying they do not."
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken's team reiterated U.S. dissatisfaction with China's concept of human rights on Sunday in explaining their opposition to a resolution on "Mutually Beneficial Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights" that Chinese officials drafted for consideration at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
"[The resolution] sought to promote an approach to human rights whereby states cooperate to advance the interests of governments over promoting and respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals," the State Department bulletin argued.
Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, China, Uyghurs, Antony Blinken, State Department, Germany
Original Author: Joel Gehrke
Original Location: Nike and Western companies face Chinese cotton boycotts in new front of human rights battle