June 4, 2021 — U.S. sanctions filed last week against a Chinese distant-water fishing firm for alleged forced labor abuses amount to “American slander,” according to a Chinese state media outlet.
The China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party Youth League, has sought to link the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s sanctioning of the Dalian Ocean Fishing Co. to other Western claims of human rights abuses as part of a coordinated effort to “tarnish” China.