Photo taken on Oct.25, 2019 shows a cotton field in Awat County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. With a long history of cotton planting, Awat is known as the "Town of Cotton" in China. The county boasts high-quality cotton and high-efficiency in production. (Xinhua/Sadat)
As H&M, Nike and some other multinational companies were caught on their stance over Xinjiang cotton supply issues, the Chinese Ambassador to the US blasted the attempt of the US to counter, suppress and split China behind the Xinjiang cotton ban by creating and spreading groundless lies at any cost and without any bottom line.
Ambassador Cui Tiankai made the remarks in an interview with Chinese media on Friday, in which he said that those multinational companies have made “a dangerous precedent” in their moves to deliberately disrupt or even damage the normal operations of the market and the international industry chain simply for bowing to certain interest groups.
“They have to think really carefully about what consequence this would lead to,” he warned, saying that the companies have to take whatever potential outcomes brought by angry Chinese customers.
Cui also dismissed the Western media’s false and biased reports over Xinjiang in an interview with CNN on Thursday, saying their reports were just fabrications, just like the stories they told a few years ago on Syria and Libya.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly made clarifications on Xinjiang recently after the unilateral and arbitrary sanctions from the European Union, the US and some other western countries on a few Chinese officials, and also amid the controversy over the Better Cotton Initiative(BCI)’s ban on Xinjiang cotton.
At a video promotion event introducing the real Xinjiang, which was jointly held by the Xinjiang government and the Chinese Embassy in the UK on Friday, the head of Xinjiang’s legislative body also refuted the disinformation regarding the region. The UK announced sanctions against four Chinese officials on Xinjiang on Monday.
“All that Xinjiang has done is open, aboveboard and honest for the benefit of all ethnic groups in the region,” said Shewket Imin, director of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
He noted that Xinjiang suffered greatly from ethnic separatism, terrorism and religious extremism in the past which has caused the deaths of a large number of innocent people and immeasurable property losses, but the region has now seen zero violent or terrorist incidents for more than four years in a row under the government’s counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts in line with the law, principles and spirit of UN anti-terrorism resolutions, he said.
He also introduced sustainable social improvement, the great achievement in poverty alleviation and the high-quality economic development in Xinjiang, such as the building of railways and airports that connect all the prefectures and cities in the region.