China admonishes H&M over ‘problematic’ map on website

Swedish retailer H&M continues to clash with Beijing, this time over how it has portrayed the region geographically.

Chinese officials admonished H&M Friday over a “problematic” map on the company’s website in the latest sign of escalating tensions after the Swedish retailer criticized China’s controversial cotton-picking region.

Shanghai government regulators summoned H&M managers to a meeting after internet users complained about the map, officials said on social media.

Chinese officials did not provide any detail about the alleged offense, which they said H&M managers quickly corrected.

But H&M got in trouble with China in 2018 for listing Taiwan as a country on the Taiwanese version of its website. China claims the democratic island country is part of its territory.

H&M was told to “bolster its awareness of the national territory, and really ensure the standardized use of the Chinese map,” the Cyberspace Administration of China’s Shanghai arm said in a post on the WeChat social network, according to The Wall Street Journal.

H&M did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The map flap is just the latest headache H&M has faced in China, the fast-fashion retailer’s top clothing supplier and its fourth-largest market by sales.

The company was hit with boycott threats last week and had its products pulled from Chinese e-commerce platforms over a statement it made last year saying it does not source cotton from the Xinjiang region, where Beijing has been accused of forced labor practices against Uyghur Muslims.

H&M tried to tamp down the backlash Wednesday with a new statement saying it’s “dedicated to regaining the trust and confidence” of its customers, colleagues and business partners in China, where its store locations were reportedly scrubbed from digital maps last week.

The company said it wants to be “a responsible buyer, in China and elsewhere,” but did not mention Xinjiang specifically.

With Post wires