5 more China-based companies blacklisted by US over Uyghur forced labour

Aiming to keep goods made with forced labour out of the country’s supply chains, the United States recently banned imports from five more Chinese companies over alleged human rights abuses involving the Uyghurs.

These China-based companies have been accused of profiting from the slave labour of Uyghurs in what Beijing calls “poverty alleviation” programs.

As per the United States, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the addition of five entities based in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, bringing the total entities listed to 73.

This means that Americans are now explicitly banned from doing business with these 73 companies. A broader prohibition on importing any goods produced even in part by the slave labour of Uyghurs is also in place.

Fertilizer manufacturer Rare Earth Magnesium Technology Group Holdings and its parent, Century Sunshine Group Holdings, both are based in Hong Kong but stand accused of sourcing tainted inputs from the Xinjiang region of China.

The Kashgar Construction Engineering (Group) Co Ltd, Xinjiang Habahe Ashele Copper Co Ltd and Xinjiang Tengxiang Magnesium Products Co Ltd are accused of directly employing the slave labour of Uyghurs.

These additions to the UFLPA list, the DHS said, build on its commitment to eradicate forced labour and promote accountability for China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).”

Effective August 9, 2024, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will apply a rebuttable presumption that goods produced by Century Sunshine Group Holdings Ltd, Kashgar, Construction Engineering (Group) Co Ltd, Rare Earth Magnesium Technology Group Holdings, Ltd; Xinjiang Habahe Ashele Copper Co Ltd, and Xinjiang Tengxiang Magnesium Products Co, Ltd will be prohibited from entering the United States.

“As DHS identifies more entities across different sectors that use or facilitate forced labour, we act to keep their tainted goods out of our nation’s supply chains,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N Mayorkas cited in a statement.

The UFLPA was signed into law in December 2021 and the UFLPA Entity List includes companies that are active in the apparel, agriculture, polysilicon, plastics, chemicals, batteries, household appliances, electronics, and food additives sectors, among others.

“Companies must conduct due diligence and know where their products are coming from,” said the DHS Under Secretary for Policy Robert Silvers, who serves as Chair of the Forced Labour Enforcement Task Force Participation (FLETF).

The FLETF is an interagency task force that includes the US Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the US Trade Representative, and the Departments of Labour, State, Justice, the Treasury, and Commerce (member agencies).

The US government has since 2021 accused Beijing of carrying out “genocide” against Uyghurs and other Muslims in far-west Xinjiang, including by sterilizing women and imprisoning Uyghurs in high-security internment camps.

Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs has lauded the US decision to expand the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) entity list.

There are “well-documented abuses and repressive policies” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has “implemented a system of forced labour designed to alter the demographic makeup of East Turkistan through labour transfers and to erase Uyghur culture–key strategies in the ongoing Uyghur genocide,” it said.

The non-profit organisation’s Executive Director Rushan Abbas stated “Uyghur genocide has turned into a profitable enterprise for big business.”

“By expanding the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to cover these five CCP-controlled companies, the US government is sending a strong message: it is committed to making this human rights crisis economically unsustainable,” Abbas said.

She said that the “only way to end this atrocity is for the global community–businesses, nations, and organizations–to unite and enforce substantial, effective consequences against the CCP’s brutal actions, rather than settling for mere statements of condemnation,” Abbas said.

Meanwhile, a Chinese researcher has said that US allegations are groundless talking. The use of the “human rights” card to curb the development of Chinese enterprises is yet another US stunt, Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.