Viral Labubu Toys Linked to Uyghur Forced Labor Confirm Risks Long Exposed by VOC 

Pop Mart’s viral Labubu dolls, sold in “blind boxes” across U.S. retail stores, are linked to state-imposed forced labor in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a new study confirms.

Independent laboratory testing verified by The New York Times and published today found that 16 of 20 Labubu dolls purchased in the United States for testing contained cotton whose isotopic signature traces directly to the Uyghur Region, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has implemented the world’s largest contemporary system of state-imposed forced labor with up to three million Uyghurs and other ethnic groups at risk of coerced work. The Times investigation followed an anonymous tip received by Campaign for Uyghurs in 2025.

A companion op-ed published today in The Hill, coauthored by Dr. Adrian Zenz, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s (VOC) Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies, and Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), coauthor of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), calls for federal enforcement action to halt Pop Mart imports and for U.S. retailers to adopt verifiable cotton traceability protocols.

As outlined by VOC researchers in a new memo for U.S. policymakers, Pop Mart’s business is closely tied to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interests, and the company has publicly defended Beijing’s position on forced labor cotton. In 2021, Pop Mart terminated its collaboration with Adidas after the sportswear company pledged to avoid Xinjiang cotton. In court filings, Pop Mart accused Adidas of “baselessly smearing Xinjiang” and “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.” Pop Mart projects doubling its U.S. membership and store count over the next two years.

Cotton is one of several Xinjiang agricultural inputs implicated in China’s system of forced labor. Research by Dr. Zenz has exposed that Xinjiang’s share of China’s cotton production grew from 27.4 percent in 2001 to 89.5 percent in 2021, with the region accounting for roughly 20 percent of global supply. Textile hubs in Guangdong and Hebei—where Pop Mart concentrates production—are regularly fed by “cotton trains” from the region, often routed through intermediaries that obscure the origin of the raw material.

A 2024 peer-reviewed report by Dr. Zenz and I-Lin Lin, published by the International Network for Critical China Studies, found that forced labor, coercive land-use transfers, and political indoctrination of Uyghur workers also extend to Xinjiang-produced tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, and stevia. Chinese corporations examined in that research account for over 50 percent of China’s tomato production and 65 percent of global red pepper pigment, with downstream exposure documented for multinationals such as Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Del Monte, PepsiCo, McCormick, Unilever, and L’Oréal.

“The Labubu findings expose how deeply Beijing’s coercion has penetrated global consumer supply chains,” said Dr. Adrian Zenz, VOC Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies. “Inside China, a genuinely clean cotton supply chain is all but impossible to maintain. In 2025 alone, authorities transferred over 3 million people via ‘labor transfers,’ with those refusing state work assignments facing detention and long-term imprisonment.”

“Viral consumer trends can rapidly saturate American markets with tainted goods when enforcement falters,” said VOC President and CEO Dr. Eric Patterson. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection should immediately detain and test all Pop Mart imports tied to the company’s manufacturing hubs, and the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force should add Pop Mart to the UFLPA Entity List. The promise of novelty and profit cannot justify complicity in Beijing’s repression of the Uyghur people.”

For press inquiries, please contact Michal Harmata at michal.harmata@victimsofcommunism.org or (202) 629-9500. 

Photo by Chainwit. via Wikimedia under CC BY 4.0.