Despite China’s boycott over Western sportswear giants, whose refusal to use Xinjiang cotton has triggered countrywide anger, on March 26, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang paid a special visit to a raw materials supplier for Nike and Adidas in Jiangsu province. One expert said that China was placating the West by “playing good cop” in the game of counter-sanctions.
On March 24, the Communist Youth League Central Committee, an affiliate of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), slammed the “wishful thinking” of the Swedish fashion brand H&M for banning cotton from the forced labor of Uyghur Muslims, while profiting from the Chinese market.
