New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS) The Chinese government’s exploitation of the Uyghur people has emerged as a major cause for concern worldwide. The large-scale suppression of the Uyghur minority, with people subjected to arbitrary incarceration, forced labour, and family separation in work camps constitute a horrific violation of human rights.
The forced labour also poses an economic security challenge as it enables China to flood global markets with artificially cheap goods that undercut businesses in the US and other countries, while it tightens Chinese control over minerals vital to aerospace, defence and consumer products required in the rest of the world.
“The United States and other Western nations have some measure of complicity in these horrors because this exploited labour, at a massive scale, is ending up in Western supply chains,” according to an article in ‘Just Security’, a digital law and policy journal published from the New York University School of Law.
It points out that Global Rights Compliance released a major report last year that traced the provenance of four critical minerals from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. By examining global trade with the region, Uyghur forced labour was found to be linked to a vast range of products, including coffee mugs, electric vehicles, power tools, spacecraft components, and even household and commercial paint. These minerals, mined in Xinjiang, are also critical to AI technologies.
Despite the fact that the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA) prevents the importation into the US of goods mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in Xinjiang, it has been found that dozens of US and international companies utilise mineral-based products manufactured in the region. It’s highly likely that some of these products are making their way into American homes, the article states.
The report highlights that countering these destructive practices supports key goals that the Trump administration has laid out in its recently released National Security Strategy, including its ambition to protect Americans from “predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking” while utilising “soft power” to exercise influence in the world.
Initiating action, under this policy, against China’s forced labour policy that exploits the Uyghur people would reinforce US credibility, strengthen supply chain security, and ensure that American technology and standards drive the world forward without relying on coercion, the article observes.
–IANS
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