Swedish fashion giant Hennes & Mauritz AB’s (H&M) official store on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) Tmall (天貓) e-commerce platform has reopened, 16 months after the Chinese site took it down following the brand’s criticisms of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
It was not clear what prompted the reopening, and H&M and Alibaba did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tmall and many other Chinese platforms and apps scrubbed references to the fashion brand when it was revealed that H&M had pledged not to source cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, citing concerns about human rights abuses there.
Photo: Reuters
UN experts and rights groups estimate that more than 1 million people, mainly Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, have been detained in the past few years in a vast system of camps in Xinjiang. China denies all accusations of abuse.
H&M, the world’s second-biggest fast-fashion retailer, first opened on Tmall in March 2018.
It was one of many Western brands caught up in the Xinjiang cotton controversy in March last year and was disproportionately affected as one of the first to be targeted by people on Chinese social media.
While other brands such as Nike Inc, Adidas AG, Burberry Group PLC and Converse Inc saw celebrity ambassadors sever ties over their public commitments not to use Xinjiang cotton,
H&M was the only brand to see its online identity in China removed to such an extent.
Since March last year, H&M has only been able to sell online in China via its own Web site and a mini-program on WeChat, but has not been available or searchable on major third-party platforms such as Tmall or JD.com (京東).
In June, H&M closed its flagship brick-and-mortar store in Shanghai.
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