America’s China Strategy Is Working
Executives at the fashion brand Eileen Fisher are no strangers to China—or to its enormous benefits and dangerous pitfalls: The American outfitter began manufacturing its clothing there about a quarter century ago, but last year, it realized that working in China could no longer be business as usual.
The catalyst was Beijing’s repression of China’s Uyghurs in the far-west province of Xinjiang. A series of reports exposed horrific abuses of the Muslim minority group, including mass detentions, torture, and forced labor in factories and fields. “There are some issues that that’s it, you draw the line, and forced labor is one of those,” Amy Hall, Eileen Fisher’s social-consciousness strategic adviser, told me.
What Hall and her colleagues did next highlights a generally unrecognized factor that is reshaping China’s role in the global economy: its human-rights record.
Starting in early 2020, Eileen Fisher launched its most rigorous investigation ever into its Chinese supply chain. Like many brands, it tended to deal directly with only a handful of factories, primarily those stitching and knitting the shirts, sweaters, and other shelf-ready clothes Eileen Fisher sells. Behind those stretched a pyramid of other factories—yarn spinners, fabric weavers, dye houses, and so on—with which Eileen Fisher had minimal contact. The company had been monitoring its direct suppliers for any
