TOKYO -- The parent company of Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo has found itself at the center of a public backlash in China following comments made by its CEO, putting the brand between the two major markets that it aims to develop -- the West and China.
Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai said in an interview with the BBC on Nov. 28 that the company "does not use" cotton from China's Xinjiang region, the autonomous area where predominantly Muslim Uyghurs have allegedly been engaged in forced labor. Yanai declined to elaborate, saying "it gets too political if I say any more."
