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China Slams US ‘Bullying’ Over Xinjiang Import Ban

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is part of the US pushback against Beijing’s treatment of the China’s Muslim minority, which Washington has damned as genocide.


The EU plans to ban products or components made by forced labour.
Chinese companies are buying up Australian cotton in anticipation of trade bans and diplomatic relations improving between the two nations. File photo: China Daily via Reuters.

 

China’s Commerce ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” on Friday to a US ban on imports from Xinjiang region.

The ministry described the action by the United States as “economic bullying”, state news agency Xinhua reported.

US President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Thursday that bans imports from China’s western Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labour.

The US President approved the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, , the White House said, which is part of the US pushback against Beijing’s treatment of China’s Muslim minority, which Washington has describes as genocide.

The bill passed Congress this month after lawmakers reached a compromise between House and Senate versions.

The legislation assumes all goods from Xinjiang, where Beijing has established detention camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim groups, are made with forced labour and it bars imports unless it can be proven otherwise.

Some goods – such as cotton, tomatoes, and polysilicon used in solar-panel manufacturing – are designated “high priority” for enforcement action.

China denies abuses in Xinjiang, a major cotton producer that also supplies much of the world’s materials for solar panels.

Nury Turkel, the Uyghur-American vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, told Reuters this month the bill’s effectiveness would depend on the Biden administration’s reaction to companies seeking waivers.

One of the bill’s co-authors, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, said it was necessary to “send a resounding and unequivocal message against genocide and slave labour”.

In its final days in January, the previous US administration under Donald Trump announced a ban on all Xinjiang cotton and tomato products.

 

  • Reuters with additional editing by George Russell

 

 

READ MORE:

 

Intel Apologises Over Statement on Xinjiang Labour

 

US to Blacklist China AI Firm SenseTime over Xinjiang: FT

 

Banned Xinjiang Cotton Shows Up On US Shelves: WaPo

 

 

 

George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.

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