Most likely our demand for China's exports will be diverted to suppliers in other low-wage countries. The point is that almost all these other countries have hu man rights records as reprehensible as that of China-Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and so forth. For sanctions to be even mo derately effective against a big trader like China they would have to be imposed against other big traders that are also human rights abusers. Such generalized trade barriers might delight American wage earners and radicals in the short run. But they are almost certain to invite retaliation against U.S. exports, whose eventual decline would harm American workers in the long run.
Economic sanctions are thus unilateral protectionism by another name.
An essential element of a progressive strategy is that the fight for human rights can't be imposed from without. It has to engage large numbers of people from within. To broaden the movement, human rights themselves have to be defined broadly. The United States has ignored the last right, domestically and internationally, and hasn't exactly championed the right to organize either. Yet honoring both economic and social rights is critical in building a popular human rights effort.