US impounds Volkswagen cars amid fears of forced labour

Newspaper reports human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in hottest region known as ‘the oven’

THOUSANDS of luxury cars including Porches, Audis and Bentleys have been impounded at US ports amid allegations they contained parts made through forced labour in China.

The brands are all owned by German giant Volkswagen and contain “western China” electronic components suspected of breaching anti-slavery laws, according to the Financial Times.

It came as Volkswagen was hit by claims that it had benefited from human rights abuses in China’s troubled Xinjiang region, also in the west.

The US blocks imports of products made with forced labour in Xinjiang under laws passed in 2021.

Some 1,000 Porches, “several hundred” Bentleys and “several thousand” Audis were impounded, it was reported. VW did not comment on the report. Yesterday the company said it was considering the future of its joint venture with SAIC Motors in Xinjiang after it was claimed a huge test track in the Turpan Basin was built using the forced labour of Uyghur Muslims.

Turpan, where temperatures can soar higher than 80C in summer, is China’s hottest region, known by locals as “the oven”. The test track took nearly three years to build and is equivalent to 3,270 football pitches in size, according to Chinese news reports from 2019.

According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, pictures show Uyghur workers in military uniforms during the track’s construction. It said this was a sign that they were part of forced labour programmes. A report by the stateowned company that built the track is also said to note that workers had their eyes scanned, with the data shared with local authorities, to “strengthen ideological consciousness”.

Asked to comment yesterday, a VW spokesman said: “The Volkswagen Group is in talks with the non-controlled joint venture Saic-volkswagen about the future direction of business activities in Xinjiang province.

“Various scenarios are currently being intensively examined.”

As recently as December, VW had denied that its Xinjiang business had any links to Beijing’s brutal crackdown on Uyghurs in the region.

However, that audit’s credibility was questioned after employees at the consultancy which carried it out disavowed the findings.

The US has previously said the campaign of persecution against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, which reportedly includes re-education camps and even forced sterilisation, amounts to an ongoing “genocide”.

VW is one of the few remaining German companies with a factory in the region. Chemicals giant BASF recently announced it was pulling out following similar allegations of forced labour at a joint venture.

BASF insisted the decision was because of commercial considerations but admitted the local situation was also a factor.

In Germany, companies have faced political pressure to scale back their presence in China as a result of Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang.

China denies the allegations of human rights abuses in the region.