Hong Kong’s Esquel Group seeks preliminary injunction over US blacklisting of Xinjiang unit

Name: China claims improved living standards and ethnic equality in Xinjiang while ignoring allegations
Uploaded: 2021-07-20T03:12:31.000Z
Duration: 1 min 50 s
Description: China claims improved living standards and ethnic equality in Xinjiang while ignoring allegations

Esquel sued the US Commerce Department this month to force the removal of its Xinjiang unit from the US’s so-called entity list

Changji Esquel unit one of more than two dozen companies sanctioned for alleged ties to forced labour

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Hong Kong’s Esquel Group is seeking to remove its Xinjiang-based unit from a US blacklist over allegations of forced labour. The Xinjiang region produces about 85 per cent of China’s cotton and about a fifth of the global cotton supply. Photo: Xinhua

Chad Bray

Published: 11:12am, 20 Jul 2021Updated: 8:16pm, 20 Jul 2021

Esquel Group, one of the world’s biggest shirt makers, has asked an American court to grant a preliminary injunction removing one of its subsidiaries from a United States government blacklist over allegations of ties to forced labour in western China.

The Hong Kong textile company, which counted Nike, Patagonia and Tommy Hilfiger as customers before the blacklisting, sued the US Commerce Department and other US government agencies and officials in US District Court for the District of Columbia this month over the inclusion of its Changji Esquel unit on the so-called entity list, which prohibits it from buying from American suppliers.

The unit, which is based in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, was added to the entity list a year ago as the US sought to punish companies over alleged human rights abuses against Uygur Muslims in the region. Esquel has repeatedly denied the allegations and said its unit was improperly added to the entity list with “no notice or supporting evidence”.

“Esquel has had no choice but to take legal action to end the devastating ongoing reputational and commercial damage resulting from this erroneous designation,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

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China claims improved living standards and ethnic equality in Xinjiang while ignoring allegations

Last year, a US government inter-agency committee determined that Changji Esquel had engaged in activities “contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States through the practice of forced labour involving members of Muslim minority groups” in Xinjiang. Changji Esquel was added to the blacklist in July 2020.

Esquel, which has had a presence in Xinjiang for a quarter century, said it has tried to engage with the US government to correct the record, but has received no meaningful response or evidence to support the inclusion of its Xinjiang unit.