By Eduardo Baptista and Casey Hall
BEIJING (Reuters) – Casual wear giant Uniqlo is facing calls for a consumer boycott in China after a BBC report quoted the owner’s CEO as saying the company does not source cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, which has faced accusations in recent times of forced labor. years.
Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai made the comment during an interview published Thursday in Tokyo with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Two hashtags on Yanai’s comment went viral on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Friday, where some users decried the company and vowed never to buy its products.
“With this kind of attitude from Uniqlo, and the founder’s arrogant founder, they are probably betting that mainland consumers will forget about it in a few days and continue to buy. Can we stand firm this time?” wrote one user.
Fast Retailing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Asked about Yanai’s comments at a press conference on Friday afternoon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said she hoped “companies can remove political pressure and bad interference and independently make business decisions in accordance with their own interests.”
China is Fast Retailing’s largest overseas market and has more than 900 stores on the mainland. Greater China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, accounts for more than 20% of the company’s sales.
The issue of sourcing from Xinjiang has been a geopolitical minefield for foreign companies with a large presence in China.
This was demonstrated by the consumer boycott that Uniqlo’s rival H&M faced in China in 2021 over a statement on its website in which it expressed concern over allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang and said it would no longer source cotton there.
H&M saw its stores removed from major e-commerce platforms and its store locations removed from mapping apps in China as it bore the brunt of consumer anger against companies refusing to source cotton from Xinjiang, though other Western brands including Nike, Puma , Burberry, Adidas and more were involved in the controversy.
In September, China’s Ministry of Commerce launched an investigation into PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, saying in a statement that PVH was suspected of “wrongfully boycotting” Xinjiang cotton and other products “without factual basis” .
PVH has said it will respond in accordance with relevant regulations, media reported.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing and Casey Hall in Shanghai; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
