U.S. report finds widespread forced Uighur labour in China

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers pushed March 11 for a ban on imports from a vast area of northwestern China because of the widespread use of forced labour on farms and factories in a region where the communist government has detained more than a million people in a campaign against ethnic minorities.

The U.S. already bans imports made with forced labour, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers said virtually anything coming from Xinjiang, including goods sold by major American and global consumer brands, should be considered tainted by the mass detention and repression of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.

“We know forced labour is widespread and systematic and exists both within and outside the mass internment camps,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, referring to detention centres where the Chinese government is subjecting hundreds of thousands of Uighurs to abusive conditions, torture and political indoctrination.

McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which released a report that documented forced labour exists in the mass internment camps, on farms in Xinjiang, that produce cotton for the global market as well as factories elsewhere in the country.

The report said major brands, including Coca-Cola, Patagonia and Nike, are suspected of directly or indirectly relying on forced labour. The commission relied on outside experts, satellite imagery, official reports and accounts from The Associated Press and other media organizations.

Bipartisan legislation introduced March 11 would treat all goods from Xianjiang, including clothing and electronic goods sold by major U.S. and global brands, as presumed to be banned unless they were certified by Customs and Border Protection.

“It shifts the burden of proof and the presumption that, given these practices and what’s detailed in this report, we should assume that anything that is produced in this region is done so through forced labour,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is the other co-chairman of the commission.

It’s not clear when Congress would take up the bill. Legislation that would more broadly address China’s campaign against the Uighurs passed without opposition last year, but the House and Senate must still reconcile different versions and send it to the president.

Corporations mentioned in the report have had varied responses. Coca-Cola said in a statement it prohibits the use of all forms of forced labour and said its sugar supplier in Xinjiang passed an internal audit.

In January 2019, Badger Sportswear, a leading supplier of T-shirts and other apparel to U.S. college bookstores, cut ties with a Chinese company after an Associated Press investigation traced shipments from a factory inside an internment camp in Xinjiang.

Nike said in a statement that it does not directly source any products in the Xinjiang region and has been reviewing suppliers outside the area “to identify and assess potential risks” to Uighurs and other minorities amid reports that some have been sent to other parts of China to work under repressive conditions.

“Nike is committed to upholding international labour standards and we are continuing to evaluate how to best monitor our compliance standards in light of the complexity of this situation,” the company said.

A coalition of retailing and manufacturing groups said in a joint statement that they do not tolerate forced labour and that companies are working with experts to ensure the fair treatment of workers in their supply chains. It called on the U.S. government to create a working group that would find “constructive solutions” but did not directly address the proposed legislation.

As acknowledged by both the U.S. government and non-government experts, the conditions in Xinjiang and the treatment of ethnic minority workers from the region present profound challenges to the integrity of the global supply chain, including issues of transparency, access, and auditing,” it said. “Accepting the status quo is not an option.”

China has long suspected that Uighurs, who are predominantly Muslim and culturally and ethnically distinct from the majority Han Chinese population, of harbouring separatist tendencies. In recent years, though, it has dramatically escalated its campaign against them by detaining more than a million people in the internment camps and prisons.

The Chinese government has dismissed international criticism of the campaign as meddling in its internal affairs and described the camps as vocational training centres. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang rejected the findings of the report and denied the use of forced labour.

“The legitimate labour rights and interests of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are protected according to law, and there is no such thing as forced labour as claimed by someone with ulterior motives,” Geng told reporters.