Arrested, missing activists in China spark criticism

SHANGHAI — The arrest and disappearance of three labor activists investigating a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump shoes in China prompted a call for her brand to stop working with the supplier and raised questions about whether the first family’s commercial interests would muddy U.S. leadership on human rights.

“Ivanka’s brand should immediately cease its work with this supplier, and the Trump administration should reverse its current course and confront China on its human rights abuses,” Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a Wednesday email. Ms. Trump must decide, she added, “whether she can ignore the Chinese government’s apparent attempt to silence an investigation into those worker abuses.”

Amnesty International called Wednesday for the release of China Labor Watch investigator Hua Haifeng, as well as his two colleagues, who are feared to have been detained.

The men were working with an American nonprofit group to publish a report next month alleging low pay, excessive overtime and possible misuse of student labor, according to China Labor Watch executive director Li Qiang, who lost contact with the investigators over the weekend. The investigators also witnessed verbal abuse, with one manager insulting staff about poorly made shoes and making a crude reference in Chinese to female genitalia, according to Mr. Li.

China Labor Watch has been exposing poor working conditions at suppliers to some of the world’s bestknown companies for nearly two decades, but Mr. Li said his work has never before attracted this level of scrutiny from China’s state security apparatus.

The arrest and disappearances come amid a crackdown on perceived threats to the stability of China’s ruling Communist Party, particularly from sources with foreign ties such as China Labor Watch. Faced with rising labor unrest and a slowing economy, Beijing has taken a stern approach to activism in southern China’s manufacturing belt and to human rights advocates generally, sparking a wave of critical reports about disappearances, public confessions, forced repatriation and torture in custody.

China Labor Watch’s investigation also had an unusual target: a brand owned by the daughter of the president of the United States.