Chinese labour activist targeted over ‘Ivanka Trump supplier probe’
Hua Haifeng believes police arrested him and took a special interest in his work after he began investigating factories supplying Trump’s clothing brand
Labour activist Hua Haifeng had avoided legal trouble in his 14 years investigating companies in China, but that changed after he looked into a factory that made shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand.
Hua and two colleagues had worked undercover in factories that manufactured shoes for the brand of US President Donald Trump’s daughter and other foreign firms when they were detained in May.
The 36-year-old activist and the two other men, who work for New York-based non-profit China Labor Watch, were accused of using “spying and other monitoring equipment”.
The government has intensified a crackdown on human rights activists and lawyers in recent years.
But Hua said he believes the factory’s link to the Ivanka Trump brand may have been a “factor that attracted police interest”, although he cannot confirm it.
“As for Ms Ivanka and her family, I want to say that business activities should abide by business regulations and not use a family’s political resources for personal commercial gain,” said Hua.