Supply Chains Widely Tainted by Forced Labor in China WASHINGTON — Human rights activists, labor leaders and others urge

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Supply Chains Widely Tainted by Forced Labor in China
WASHINGTON — Human rights activists, labor leaders and others
urged the Biden administration on Friday to put its weight behind a
coming ban on products made with forced labor in the Xinjiang
region of China, saying slavery and coercion taint company supply
chains that run through the region and China more broadly.
The law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, was signed by
President Biden in December and is set to go into effect in June.
It bans all goods made in Xinjiang or with ties to certain entities
or programs that are under sanctions and transfer minority workers
to job sites, unless the importer can demonstrate to the U.S.
government that its supply chains are free of forced labor.
It remains to be seen how stringently the law is applied, and if
it ends up affecting a handful of companies or far more. A broad
interpretation of the law could cast scrutiny on many products that
the United States imports from China, which is home to more than a
quarter of the world’s manufacturing. That could lead to more
detentions of goods at the U.S. border, most likely delaying
product deliveries and further fueling inflation.
The law requires that a task force of Biden administration
officials produce several lists of entities and products of concern
in the coming months. It is unclear how many organizations the
government will name, but trade experts said many businesses that
relied on Chinese factories might realize that at least some part
or raw material in their supply chains could be traced to
Xinjiang.
“I believe there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of companies
that fit the categories” of the law, John M. Foote, a partner in
the international trade practice at Kelley Drye & Warren, said
in an interview.
The State Department estimates that the Chinese government has
detained more than one million people in Xinjiang in the last five
years — Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui and other groups — under the guise of
combating terrorism.
China denounces these claims as “the lie of the century.” But
human rights groups, former detainees, participating companies and
the Chinese government itself provide ample documentation showing
that some minorities are forced or coerced into working in fields,
factories and mines, in an attempt to subdue the population and
bring about economic growth that the Chinese government sees as key
to stability.
Rushan Abbas, the founder and executive director of the
nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs, who has written about the
detention of her sister in Xinjiang, said at a virtual hearing
convened by the task force on Friday that forced labor had become a
“profitable venture” for the Chinese Communist Party, and was meant
to reduce the overall population in Xinjiang’s villages and
towns.
“The pervasiveness of the issue cannot be understated,” she
said, adding that forced labor was made possible by “the complicity
of industry.”
Gulzira Auelkhan, an ethnic Kazakh who fled Xinjiang for Texas,
said in the hearing that she had been imprisoned for 11 months in
Xinjiang alongside ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs who were subject to
torture and forced sterilization. She also spent two and a half
months working in a textile factory making school uniforms for
children and gloves, which her supervisors said were destined for
the United States, Europe and Kazakhstan, she said through a
translator.
It is already illegal to import goods made with slave labor. But
for products that touch on Xinjiang, the law will shift the burden
of proof to companies, requiring them to provide evidence that
their supply chains are free of forced labor before they are
allowed to bring the goods into the country.
Supply chains for solar products, textiles and
tomatoes have already received much scrutiny, and companies in
those sectors have been working for months to eliminate any
exposure to forced labor. By some estimates, Xinjiang is the source
of one-fifth of the world’s cotton and 45
percent of its polysilicon, a key material for solar
panels.
But Xinjiang is also a major provider of other products and raw
materials, including coal, petroleum, gold and electronics, and
other companies could face a reckoning as the law goes into
effect.
In the hearing on Friday, researchers and human rights activists
presented allegations of links to forced labor programs for Chinese
manufacturers of gloves, aluminum, car batteries, hot sauce and
other goods.
Horizon Advisory, a consultancy in Washington, claimed in a
recent report based on open-source documents that the Chinese
aluminum sector had numerous “indicators of forced labor,” like
ties to labor transfer programs and the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps, which has been a target of U.S. government
sanctions for its role in Xinjiang abuses.
Xinjiang accounts for about 9 percent of the global production
of aluminum, which is used to produce electronics, automobiles,
planes and packaging in other parts of China.
The State Department estimates that China has detained more than
one million people in Xinjiang in the last five years. The Urumqi
No. 3 Detention Center has room for at least 10,000
people. Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
“China is an industrial hub for the world,” Emily de La Bruyère,
a co-founder of Horizon Advisory, said at the hearing.
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“Forced labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China not only
constitutes a grave human rights transgression, but also taints
international supply chains,” she said. “And this is true across
sectors ranging from solar energy to textiles and apparel to
aluminum.”
The law had been the subject of fierce lobbying by
corporations and others, including critics who feared that a
broad interpretation of the statute could put the U.S. ability to
combat climate change at risk, or further scramble supply chains
and stoke inflation.
Congress has already devoted significant funds to the law’s
enforcement. It appropriated $27.5 million this year to carry out
the act, funding that is probably enough to devote more than 100
full-time employees to enforcing the ban on Xinjiang products
alone, Mr. Foote said.
Companies and trade groups said they were willing to follow the
restrictions but wanted to avoid unnecessary harm to their
businesses.
Vanessa Sciarra, a vice president at the American Clean Power
Association, which represents solar and wind companies, urged the
government to issue detailed guidance to importers about how to
audit their supply chains, and use only carefully verified
information to make its decisions.
“Detention of cargo for weeks or months at a time is a serious
commercial matter,” she said in the hearing.
Many companies have been carrying out due diligence of their
ties to Xinjiang, and some major industry associations say they
have eliminated forced labor from their supply chains.
But some activists express skepticism, saying the lack of access
to the region has made it difficult for companies to conduct
independent audits. It is also not yet clear exactly what kind of
scrutiny the government will require, or what kind of business ties
will be permitted under the law.
For example, some companies have been bifurcating their supply
chains, to ensure that material from Xinjiang goes to produce goods
for China or other parts of the world, not for the United States —
a practice that Richard Mojica, a trade lawyer at Miller &
Chevalier Chartered, said should suffice under the letter of the
law, but would be “reviewed further in the months and years to
come.”
Mr. Mojica said in an interview that many companies were
expecting the government to provide clear and practical guidance in
the coming months about how to comply with the law, but “that
expectation may be misguided.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get the level of clarity that some
companies expect,” he said.
critically evaluate the situation using the theories which you
have identified. e.g. Utilitarianism, Justice, Rights, Virtues