Factory boss defiant as sanctions bite in China's Xinjiang

AKSU, China (AP) — A backlash against reports of forced labor and other abuses of the largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang is taking a toll on China's cotton industry, but it's unclear if the pressure will compel the government or companies to change their ways.

Li Qiang, general manager of the Huafu Fashion yarn factory in Xinjiang, told reporters that even though the company lost money in 2020 for the first time in its 27-year history, it bounced back by shifting to domestic orders.

“This is now in the past,” Li said. “We’ve turned things around in the first quarter of this year.”

Li blamed a sharp fall in foreign orders, as customers including Adidas and H&M cut ties, on “fake news" in a 2019 Wall Street Journal story that said brand name apparel makers and food companies were entangled in China’s campaign to forcibly assimilate its Muslim population. Huafu also cited U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

In a crackdown since 2017 after a series of militant attacks, the Chinese government has detained a million or more people in Xinjiang, a major cotton-producing region in China’s northwest that is home to the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups. Critics also accuse it of torture, forced sterilization and cultural and religious suppression.

Apart from cotton, much of the world’s polysilicon for photovoltaic cells comes from Xinjiang. The U.S. is now weighing sanctions over the alleged use of forced labor in the production of solar panels.

Xinjiang officials deny the charges and brush off Western criticism. They recently took about a dozen foreign journalists to the sprawling Huafu complex in Aksu city, where 780,000 spindles churn out 100,000 tons of colored yarn annually for sportswear and other items.

The company said in a preliminary estimate...