UK blocks Xinjiang labor camps, accusing China of “torture”

LONDON – The UK has introduced new measures to root out the presence of alleged forced labor in the Chinese region of Xinjiang in British supply chains.

China is accused of extrajudicially detaining more than a million Uighur Muslims and other minorities in political re-education camps in the northwestern autonomous region, along with invasive surveillance, restrictions on Uyghur culture and the use of forced labor. .

China strongly denies the allegations, saying the centers aim to combat extremism and encourage the development of professional skills.

Companies with an annual turnover in excess of £ 36 million ($ 49.2 million) that do not demonstrate due diligence to ensure that their supply chains are free from forced labor under the Modern Slavery Act will now be subject to of fines, as announced by the British Secretary of State, Dominic Raab. Tuesday in the House of Commons.

“We need to make sure that UK companies are not part of the supply chains leading to the gates of internment camps in Xinjiang and make sure that the products of the human rights violations that occur in these fields don’t end up on the shelves of the supermarkets we buy here at home, week after week, ”Raab said.

The government will also initiate an urgent review of export controls to prevent exports that could help abuse human rights, issue new guidelines to companies operating in the region and extend the modern slavery law to the public sector, with the ban of any company that has forced labor links from public procurement contracts.

Raab claimed the evidence is now “powerful” and “paints a really distressing picture,” accusing China of operating “internment camps, arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labor, torture and forced sterilization, all in industrial scale “.

“It’s really horrible: the barbarity we had hoped would be lost in another era that is practiced today as we speak in one of the most important members of the international community,” he added.

Raab cited first-hand reports of escaped diplomats and victims, satellite images showing factories in internment camps and the destruction of mosques, and third-party reports from the UN Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in London did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Raab stressed that China’s refusal to allow access to a UN human rights commissioner or other credible foreign authority was not reconciled with these claims.

“China cannot simply deny all access to those trusted third-party bodies that could verify the facts and at the same time maintain a credible denial position,” he added.

Raab’s measures stopped sanctioning individual Chinese officials for their involvement in the alleged atrocities, and Labor’s shadow secretary Lisa Nandy said her counterpart had not gone far enough in comparing Raab’s actions to “twist the edges”.

The presence of forced labor in international supply chains has been the target of several major governments in recent years. In late 2020, several U.S. companies suffered fire for allegedly lobbying to weaken a bipartisan bill banning imports from Xinjiang.

“Some American politicians have invented misinformation of the so-called ‘forced labor’ in order to restrict and oppress the relevant parties and companies in China, as well as contain China’s development,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Chinese, Hua Chunying, on CNBC in December.

“All Xinjiang ethnic groups choose their occupations according to their own will and sign ’employment contracts’ of their own free will in accordance with the law on the basis of equality.”