Three labor advocates in China who scrutinized a company making Ivanka Trump-branded shoes are being investigated on suspicion of providing industrial secrets to a foreign organization for money, state media reported yesterday.
China on Tuesday rejected a call from the US Department of State for the release of the advocates, saying that they were being investigated on suspicion of interfering with a company’s “normal operation and production activities” and the illegal use of “professional surveillance equipment.”
The Paper, a Shanghai City Government-backed newspaper, reported that police had found that the three got into “a certain factory” in Ganzhou by applying for jobs there, after “receiving another person’s prompting.”
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“They used specially bought hidden camera watches, professionally gathered internal documents on the factories’ production, hiring and salary standards as well as other industrial secrets, furthermore supplying these to relevant overseas organizations, with the purpose of obtaining funding support,” the Paper cited police as saying.
Neither the newspaper nor the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs identified the factory, nor did they mention any link to the Ivanka Trump brand, but the US-based China Labor Watch said the three — Li Zhao (李招), Su Heng (蘇恆) and Hua Haifeng (華海鋒) — had been looking into conditions at factories that produce shoes for the daughter of US President Donald Trump and other Western brands.
The newspaper said Su and others had admitted to using job applications to “infiltrate” factories across the country to provide pictures of production to foreign organizations since 2010.
Authorities have not announced what charges the three might face, but the newspaper said they were being held on the charge of illegally using hidden recording and filming devices.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) on Tuesday said the case would be handled in accordance with the law and no country had the right to interfere in the judicial process.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the State Department said labor advocates have helped US companies understand conditions in their China supply chains, “which can be essential in fulfilling their own responsibilities and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese labor laws.”
A man who answered the telephone at the Ganzhou City Police Department declined to comment, saying he was not familiar with the case.
Hua’s lawyer, Wen Yu (聞宇), also declined to comment.
Deng Guilian (鄧桂蓮), Hua’s wife, told reporters she was not aware of the specifics of the case, although said her husband had told her he was not being mistreated.
China Labor Watch said Hua and Li had worked covertly at a shoe factory owned by the Huajian Group in Dongguan. Su had worked at a related factory in Ganzhou, the group said.
Both factories produced Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, China Labor Watch said.
The investigators had discovered evidence that workers’ rights had been violated, it said.
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