The Chinese Communist Party has made a serious mistake with its state-sponsored boycott of various western fashion brands.

Beijing appears to believe that its pressure campaign will encourage western companies to abandon their restrictions on the use of cotton from Xinjiang province. In reality, these restrictions will continue while European political pressure on Beijing grows.

The basic point, here, is that the Communists’ treatment of the Uighur peoples of Xinjiang is increasingly controversial in the west. Consumers of H&M, Nike, Burberry, and other clothing lines are demanding that their preferred fashion suppliers do not work off the back of forced labor. Considering the massive revenue ramifications of losing out on consumers in Europe and North America, these fashion brands cannot afford not to listen to human rights concerns. They must listen to these concerns even if the consequences are rendered in Communist sanctions on Chinese soil.

Beijing doesn’t seem to understand this zero-sum factor.

Overly confident in the admittedly massive Chinese consumer market, Xi’s Communist clique believes that they can pressure western manufacturers in their favor. The problem for Xi and his foreign policy guru, Yang Jiechi, isn’t simply that their assessment of the situation is wrong, it’s that their response is also counterproductive. Beijing’s imposition of sanctions on various European parliamentarians is especially idiotic in this regard. While Xi has prioritized the European parliament’s ratification of the EU-China trade deal, his sanctions attack on the elected representatives of the European people will only complicate the ratification of that trade deal. Making his policy so personal, Xi inadvertently encourages EU parliamentarians to stand in solidarity with their colleagues now under Communist attack. The Communist leader is building a coalition against himself.

Xi’s strategy has constricted rather than expanded China’s diplomatic options. It will be increasingly difficult for Chancellor Angela Merkel to persuade the parliament to ratify this deal when the parliament feels personally under attack.

A far more productive strategy would have been for the Communists to show some contrition over their treatment of the Uighur peoples. Were, for example, a senior Communist official to order an immediate investigation into the conditions within the Uighur concentration camps, Beijing might be able to buy itself a little breathing room with which to pursue priorities such as the trade deal.

Instead, Xi prefers to screech from the rooftops.

Of course, that approach would require the Communists to show humility. Something that is in rather short supply in Beijing. It’s far easier for the Communists to claim that they are victims of some kind of American-led conspiracy than it is for them to look in the mirror.

It’s not clear what will happen next.

Xi still has the opportunity to change course and pare back his boycott. But time is running out. Refusing to address the justified concerns of the international community and banking on their bribes as a means for overcoming the Uighur boycott, the Communists are reinforcing all the worst stereotypes as to their nature.

Rather than attacking those who would prefer not to make or purchase products made with slave labor, the Communists should be getting rid of slave labor. Instead, they seem determined to make the world ever more concerned about the true cost of doing business in China.

(Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner foreign policy writer)

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