June 3, 2021
A US congressional group is urging players in the National Basketball Association to reconsider their ties to Chinese sports companies that use cotton from Xinjiang. The hub of China’s large cotton industry, the region is where western authorities say the Chinese government is pressing large numbers of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities into forced labor charges China vehemently denies.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established in 2000 to monitor human rights in the country, publicly released a letter it sent to the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), the union representing the NBA’s athletes. It cited news reports where Chinese sports companies Anta, Li-Ning, and Peak affirmed their use of cotton from Xinjiang following the backlash in China against western corporations such as H&M and Nike that had made previous statements distancing themselves from Xinjiang cotton.