More than a thousand shipments from China have been piling up in US ports since June. A load of components for the production of solar panels worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the news agency Reuters who reported the news. The accumulation of the material is due to a law, signed by the US president Joe Biden last year, which banned imports from Xinjiang, an autonomous Chinese region where the UN accused China of “serious violations of human rights” against the Uighur ethnic minority.
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Since the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act went into effect on June 21, the government agency responsible for controlling goods entering and leaving the United States has seized 1,053 cargoes. “A piece of legislation necessary to protect the government, businesses and consumers from importing goods produced in an unprecedented, state-sponsored forced labor system,” he explains to Republic Laura T. Murphy, Professor of Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery at the Helena Kennedy Center for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.
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US laws against illegal work
“We must remember that the import of goods produced with forced labor has been illegal in the United States since 1930″, specifies the researcher, underlining how this law is a way to make the Chinese government understand that the United States is aware of the conditions of life. and I work in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This is why “the import of products manufactured from there is explicitly illegal. All countries should have such a law”.
In recent years, several human rights groups have denounced the repression, carried out by the Chinese authorities in the name of the fight against terrorism, against Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. On August 30, a 48-page report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused China of a “large-scale arbitrary detention model”.
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According to the “In Broad Daylight” report, published last year by Murphy and supply chain analyst Nyrola Elima ?, this vast region of China produces 45% of the world supply of polycrystalline silicon. A fundamental material for converting sunlight into electricity, on which at least 95% of solar panels are based. The report shows how this material is obtained with a massive system of coercion, denied by the Chinese authorities.
“The People’s Republic of China has a state-sponsored forced labor system in the Uyghur region that is more pervasive than anything we’ve ever seen. And the products of this forced labor enter supply chains globally,” Murphy continues. .
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Significant evidence largely drawn from government and corporate sources, the research reads, reveals labor transfers to Xinjiang to fill jobs in the region’s factories and farms, “in an environment of unprecedented coercion, supported by the constant threat of re-education. and internment “.
Beijing: “Unfounded accusations”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a press conference that claims about the use of forced labor in Xinjiang are “the lie of the century invented by a small group of anti-Chinese individuals” and would hinder the response. global to climate change. “The US side should immediately stop the unreasonable crackdown on Chinese photovoltaic companies and release the seized solar panel components as quickly as possible,” he said according to Reuters.
For Laura T. Murphy, however, although many believe that actions such as the US could slow down the climate agenda “the production capacity of the sector is expanding faster than expected because companies have understood the urgency of diversify our supply chains “.