Beginning in the early 2000's, HII has engaged in a campaign to ensure that the rights of Chinese workers and citizens were protected by asking companies to sign the China Business Principles, a voluntary code of conduct developed by Amnesty International, the International Labor Rights Fund and Global Exchange. While HII introduced dozens of shareholder advisory resolutions, often supported by over 10% of shareholders, few companies seriously committed to protecting free expression of its workers since no company agreed to third party monitoring of any voluntary code of conduct, there was no agreed enforcement mechanism and no sanctions we to be imposed if violations were found to occur.

 

Moreover, according to a 2001 study entitled China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China, U.S. and Canadian technology and telecommunications companies were reported to be providing strategic and sensitive advanced technology to the Chinese police and military to violate their citizen's human rights. Additionally, companies such as Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Microsoft, Google and others have been working to restrict access and filter information on the Internet, as well as identify Internet users, including bloggers who advocate democracy, leading to their arrest, imprisonment and often torture.