About a year ago, a group of researchers at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK published a report documenting the potential relationship with forced labor at Chinese clothing companies. Members of the British Parliament cited the report ahead of a November debate that criticized China for “slavery and forced labor from another era.”
However, smart shirts, a subsidiary of the manufacturer and making clothing for major labels, filed a honour-loss lawsuit. And in December, a British judge ruled. The incident can move forward and lead to university payment losses.
The preliminary discoveries of the incident against the university are the latest in a series of legal challenges that have hit think tanks and universities studying human rights and security violations by Chinese companies. Companies have been fired on charges of honor and loss in order to halt adverse reports that led to political debate and in some cases export restrictions.
Chinese companies have recently sued threatening legal letters, sent threatening letters, and sent threatening letters to researchers in the US, Europe and Australia, and have released negative information over the past two years. I'm trying to cancel it. Unusual tactics borrow from playbooks used by businesses and celebrities to undermine news coverage in the media.
The budding legal tactics by Chinese companies can silence critics who shed light on problematic business practices in one of the world's most powerful countries, researchers warn. Legal measures, they say, have a horrific effect on their work, and often put a strain on the finances of their organizations.
The issue has become very pronounced, and the U.S. House Selection Committee on the Communist Party of China held a hearing on the issue in September.
Researchers in these cases said, “Facing with a choice: to return silently to the CCP's pressure campaign or continue to speak the truth, continuing to face the incredible reputation and financial costs of these cases. “The committee chairperson John Mourenard said the Michigan Republican at the hearing.
He added, “The Chinese Communist Party will use the American legal system to silence those who may expose them in America.”
The battle between Chinese companies and critical researchers escalated as tensions between the US and China over trade, technology and territory.
Washington has taken steps to restrict China's access to resources such as chips needed for artificial intelligence, and recently the Trump administration has imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports. Beijing rebutted measures including restrictions on rare earth mineral exports and an anti-Monopoly investigation into Google.
Over the past decade, researchers have relied primarily on public records, photos and videos, but have documented problematic business practices in China. These reports help show how products made for American and European businesses benefited from the forced labour epidemic by the Chinese ethnic minority Uyghur. Researchers have also shed light on potential security flaws, raised national security concerns, and created problematic connections between businesses and governments.
Now, Chinese companies are increasingly hiring Western lawyers to combat these types of reports over allegations of defamation.
One of the first cases occurred in 2019 when Chinese telecom giant Huawei threatened to surrender Australia's Strategic Policy Research Institute, an Australian think tank. ASPI had released a report containing allegations that the servers Huawei provided to the alliance of African countries was sending data to Shanghai.
In 2020, the Chinese Embassy gave the Australian government a list of 14 complaints they would like to address to improve relations between the countries. The complaints include funding for Australia's ASPI. This includes those that Huawei lobbyed to stop after reporting. (As of 2024, the Australian government continued to fund the organization, according to the group's latest disclosures.)
Huawei and the Chinese Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
The ASPI remains a target for threats from Chinese companies regarding research into topics including the use of forced labour. Legal costs for think tanks, including staff time on Chinese-related legal issues, rose from scratch in 2018 to $219,000 in Australia. That's almost 2% of the $12.5 million annual budget.
“It's a pile of nasty letters saying, 'We're going to sue you.' “It's designed to be very stressful and distracting.”
More recently, companies have issued similar threats to researchers in the US and UK.
Eric Sayers, who focused on US-China technology policy at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, wrote a letter from his lawyer in September, demanding that he remove an opinion piece he co-written about Chinese drone company Autel Robotics. I've received it. The article was published by the trade publication Defense News, and said that Chinese-made drones pose national security risks as they could map American infrastructure.
Autel representatives called the article “honor and humiliation and damage” and threatened to be sued if not removed, but ultimately dropped the issue.
Sayers posted a letter to X as a warning to other researchers. He wrote that it was what the Chinese government “seems like the law within our democracy.”
In May, Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology published a report from researcher Anna Puglisi, who recently departed. The report said the Chinese government is likely involved in funding the growth of BGI, a Chinese biotechnology company.
In a letter in June, BGI accused Puglisi of claiming defamation and demanded that the report be withdrawn.
“We are disappointed by Ms. Pulishi's report, especially the many mistakes,” BGI said in a statement in The New York Times.
Puglisi published her experiences while testifying before a House committee in September.
“Talking today may put me in even more danger,” Purishi told the committee. Open democracy. ”
After Purishi testified, Dewey Murdoch, executive director of Georgetown's former think tank, said the organization was standing behind her research.
“We conducted a careful review, but found no evidence that was inconsistent with the findings or conclusions in the report,” he said in a LinkedIn post. BGI has not taken any legal action against Puglisi.
In the UK, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University contacted Smartshirts in November 2023 and prepared a report linking the parent company to mandatory practices, according to legal documents. After several exchanges that the company rejected the claim, the university released its report in December.
In a complaint filed in the UK High Court that month, Smartshirt said the report was false, and risked the business that created businesses for brands such as Hugo boss Ralph Lauren and Burberry. did. Smartshirt said it believes the allegations among its customers are “spreading through the Grapevine effect.”
The UK's Honor and Loss Act is advantageous to plaintiffs over US law, making the UK a more popular place to sue news outlets and other people than what they write.
The university declined to comment.
In a Times statement, Smartshirt said it welcomed supply chain research, but was disappointed that Sheffield Hallam first released the report without correcting the inaccuracy.
“Our lawsuits are intended to address any material damage to our business resulting from misleading reports,” the company said. “It's not intended to curb the important work of ordinary researchers.”
