NGO certification being weaponized

Nongovernmental organizations focused on specific industries have developed rapidly over the past 20 years or so. Promoting better treatment of workers and opposing child labor and environmental degradation they provide certification to help companies improve their social responsibility image and provide consumers with a means to identify companies with the best ethical practices. Some of them, that is.

Not all of these industrial NGOs are angels. While there are those that are acting genuinely to promote business ethics and public welfare undertakings, some have more sinister and covert ambitions. The operations of these devilish NGOs target the industries and companies of emerging economies for political purposes. For example, the Better Cotton Initiative, an NGO headquartered in Switzerland, claims that it "exists to make global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for the sector's future".

Yet among its funding partners is USAID, the US Agency for International Development, which bluntly admits that its work "advances US national security and economic prosperity". Which explains why the BCI has initiated the "boycotting" of Xinjiang cotton based on false allegations of forced labor. The boycott is aimed at striking at China's cotton and textile industry, which are key pillars of the national economy, being both an important part of the country's foreign trade and the provider of a lot of jobs.