This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
The United States has banned imports from five more Chinese companies accused of profiting from the slave labor of Uyghurs trapped in what Beijing calls “poverty alleviation” programs.
Americans are now explicitly banned from doing business with 73 companies on the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’s Entity List, although a broader prohibition on importing any goods produced even in part by the slave labor of Uyghurs is also in place.
All 73 blacklisted companies are accused of either working directly with local authorities in China’s Xinjiang region – where the majority of the mostly Muslim minority live – to forcibly employ imprisoned Uyghurs, or else of sourcing inputs from other companies that do so.
The latest five firms to be blacklisted include fertilizer manufacturer Rare Earth Magnesium Technology Group Holdings and its parent, Century Sunshine Group Holdings, both of which are based in Hong Kong but stand accused of sourcing tainted inputs from Xinjiang.
Additionally, 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 labor of Uyghurs, says a federal filing to be published Friday.
‘Profitable’ slavery
The filing notes the five companies “may request a meeting” with U.S. Homeland Security officials to dispute the listing, or else to prove they have ended their ties to slave labor and deserve to be delisted.
The U.S. government has since 2021 accused Beijing of carrying out a campaign of “genocide” against Uyghurs and other Muslims in far-west Xinjiang, including by sterilizing women, banning the exercise of culture and imprisoning many Uyghurs in high-security internment camps.
Escaped Uyghurs report being forced to work for Chinese companies for little or no money in order to leave the camps. But Beijing denies that any slavery is taking place and has defended what it says are “poverty alleviation” programs providing training in vocational skills.
Rushan Abbas, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Campaign for Uyghurs, told Radio Free Asia that the slow drip of firms being blacklisted for exploiting slave labor in Xinjiang is progressively making it less and less attractive for other companies to do the same.
“A sad, but true reality of the Uyghur genocide is that it has become profitable for big businesses,” Abbas said, applauding Washington for leading efforts to end the “barbarity” of Uyghur slavery.
The listing was “a testament to how seriously the U.S. government is taking it to make this human rights nightmare unprofitable,” she added, calling for other countries to follow suit and introduce similar bans.
