China firmly opposes any sanction imposed on individuals or entities based on the pretext of so-called human rights issues in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and companies involved should avoid politicizing business issues, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.

H&M products had been removed from all major Chinese e-commerce platforms, including Taobao and JD, with its offline stores seeing sparse consumers since yesterday. As Nike and Uniqlo had all issued similar statements about Xinjiang, these brands also triggered boycotts and lost promotion contracts with many Chinese celebrities.

The companies that issued the statements about a halt to sourcing cotton from Xinjiang are all members of the Better Cotton Initiative, a Switzerland-based organization, according to a China Daily report on Friday.

On March 30 last year, the BCI announced it would suspend cooperation with licensed farmers in Xinjiang during the 2020-21 cotton season over allegations of forced labor in the region, the report said.

However, the BCI's office in Shanghai issued a statement on March 1 this year, in response to inquiries about the situation in the region, saying that not a single case of forced labor had been found in Xinjiang.