Xi's red line on China human rights makes companies pick sides

For years China has sought to draw moral equivalence with the West over human rights, insisting that other countries have no standing to criticise its policies. Now Beijing is making companies pay if they disagree.

China this week has pushed a campaign to boycott Western retailers after the US, UK, Canada and the EU imposed sanctions over human-rights abuses against ethnic minority Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The furor started when the Communist Youth League amplified a months-old statement from Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz AB expressing concern about reports of forced labor in the far west region, and quickly spread to other companies.

Shares