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When Amnesty International U.S.A. started looking for a new headquarters in New York City, the human rights group settled on office space in a modest skyscraper in Lower Manhattan known as Wall Street Plaza.

But just as the organization was about to sign a lease last week, the building’s owner said that its new parent company, a giant shipping conglomerate owned by the Chinese government, decided to veto the offer.

The company, Cosco Shipping, did not want the United States chapter of Amnesty International, which has produced scathing reports highlighting human rights abuses in China, as a tenant, according to the group.

Amnesty International U.S.A. said it was told the organization was “not the best tenant” for a building owned by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, in a turnabout that suggests the reach of the Communist Party during a time of intense economic dispute with the United States, and its ability to exert power in America.