Shanghai: A man investigating working conditions at a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump- brand shoes has been arrested and two others are missing, the arrested man's wife and an advocacy group has said.
Hua Haifeng was accused of illegal surveillance, according to his wife, Deng Guilian, who said the police called her on Tuesday afternoon. Deng said the caller told her she didn't need to know the details, only that she would not be able to see, speak with or receive money from her husband, the family's breadwinner.
China Labor Watch Executive Director Li Qiang said he lost contact with Hua Haifeng and the other two men, Li Zhao and Su Heng, over the weekend. By Tuesday, after dozens of unanswered calls, he had concluded, "They must be held either by the factory or the police to be unreachable."
China Labor Watch, a New York-based nonprofit, was planning to publish a report next month alleging low pay, excessive overtime and the possible misuse of student interns.
It is unclear whether the undercover investigative methods used by the advocacy group are legal in China. For 17 years, China Labor Watch has investigated working conditions at suppliers to some of the world's best-known companies, but Li said his work has never before attracted this level of scrutiny from China's state security apparatus.
"Our plan was to investigate the factory to improve the labour situation," Li said. "But now it has become more political." Walt Disney Co stopped working with a toy maker in Shenzhen last year after the group exposed labour violations. China Labor Watch has also published reports on child labour at Samsung suppliers and spent years investigating Apple Inc's China factories.
In the past, the worst thing Li feared was having investigators kicked out of a factory or face a short police detention. That has changed. 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 labour unrest and a slowing economy, Beijing has also 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.
Another difference is the target of China Labour Watch's investigation a brand owned by the daughter of the president of the United States.
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks referred questions to Ivanka Trump's brand. The Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment for this story. Abigail Klem, who took over day-to-day management when the first daughter took on a White House role as presidential adviser, has said that the brand requires licensees and their manufacturers to "comply with all applicable laws and to maintain acceptable working conditions."
Li said China Labor Watch asked police about the three missing investigators on Monday but received no reply. Li added that a friend had tried to file a missing person report on Li Zhao in Jiangxi, where the factory is located, but was told he had to do so in the man's hometown.
