Shein, the world’s largest online fashion retailer, is out to change its negative reputation in Washington.

The e-commerce site popular with Gen Z is one of the most prominent purveyors of “fast fashion,” known for selling a wide variety of cheap dresses, skirts and shirts, many under $10. But the company, which was founded in China in 2008, has been assailed by allegations that its clothes are made with the forced labor of Chinese Uyghurs, an oppressed minority group, and that its business model intentionally evades American tariffs.

For years, those charges went largely unanswered by a company whose executive team was rarely seen, let alone made available to answer questions. But now the e-commerce giant is going on the offensive as lawmakers probe its supply chains, weigh new tariffs that would hit its shipments and potentially throw up roadblocks to its rumored initial public offering. The firm has hired Washington lobbyists for the first time and is talking up its new status as a Singapore-based company after relocating its headquarters there from Nanjing. And its executives are offering previously unreported evidence to the press that they say clears the firm of human rights violations related to its cotton supply.

“We are committed to respecting human rights and adhering to local laws in each market we operate in,” said Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of strategy and corporate affairs.

The new lobbying effort underscores how geopolitical tensions are squeezing Chinese companies that rely on markets in the West, where they face rising scrutiny from both governments and consumers. In the U.S., Chinese companies have become a target for politicians looking to feed off Americans’ anti-China sentiment. They’re also potential losers in the Biden administration’s push to diversify the country’s supply chains away from China, as well as efforts to change the law that allows Shein’s products and other small shipments from China to enter the U.S. duty-free.

Shein, specifically, is under the microscope for its alleged reliance on supply chains that run through the Xinjiang region of China, the site of widespread human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority, after the U.S. enacted a ban on imports from the region in 2021.

“We are committed to respecting human rights and adhering to local laws in each market we operate in,” said Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of strategy and corporate affairs.