House OKs Xinjiang import ban
Sponsor: Must stop Chinese genocide; Senate vote unsure
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would ban a wide array of imported products made in China’s Xinjiang region, moving over the strong objections of large corporations to crack down on companies sourcing goods produced through forced labor by persecuted Muslim minorities.
The lopsided 428-1 vote reflected increasing bipartisan ire at China’s human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, where officials have waged a campaign of repression against Uyghurs, the Muslim ethnic minority group, detaining as many as 1 million in internment camps and prisons. But the legislation’s fate is uncertain in the Senate, where similar efforts have stalled amid a fierce lobbying effort by businesses that have argued that the bill’s requirements are too onerous and would disrupt global supply chains.
The measure would impose high standards for companies seeking to import products from the region, barring imports of goods made “in whole or in part” in Xinjiang unless companies could proactively prove to customs officials that the products were not made with forced labor.
The Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, has declared that it considers China’s wide-scale repression of Uyghurs in its northwestern Xinjiang region a genocide, and accused the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity.
Those offenses have included placing Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in concentration camps, forced sterilizations and abortions, and torture and sexual abuse. Lawmakers have been particularly aggressive in trying to compel companies to cut ties with suppliers implicated in Uyghur forced labor.
Rep. Jim McGovern, DMass., who sponsored the bill in the House, said in a Wednesday statement that the legislation had a “simple purpose: to stop the government of China from exploit
ing the Uyghur people.”
“In two months, the Chinese government will host the Winter Olympics in the middle of a genocide. We must take a clear moral position to stand with those who are suffering because of forced labor,” he added.
The White House announced Monday that the United States would not send any officials to the Olympics because of Beijing’s human-rights abuses.
Rep. Thomas Massie, RKy., cast the sole “no” vote. He has said he opposes the bill because he believes the United States should not interfere in the internal affairs of foreign countries.
CHINESE REACTION
Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng said Thursday the legislation was an example of the United States “masquerading unilateralism, protectionism and bullying as concerns for human rights,” adding that China would “staunchly defend” its interests.
China has worked to contain evidence of the crackdown in Xinjiang, wiping information from websites and expelling journalists who have documented the government’s practices there.
A number of prominent business groups and companies had bristled at the standard at the heart of the bill, which presumes that all goods produced in the region are made with forced labor unless companies can prove otherwise.
They have argued that it would be overly arduous given the opacity of Chinese supply chains and the difficulty in auditing them.
Companies including Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple lobbied Congress in an attempt to weaken that provision, claiming that the passage of the bill could wreak havoc on already crippled supply chains.
Roughly 1 in 5 cotton garments sold globally contains cotton or yarn from Xinjiang, and the region produces a significant portion of the world’s polysilicon, which is used to make solar panels and smartphones.
“It is a piece of legislation that will impose substantial constraints and costs on corporations that have been operating their supply chains in ways that ignore labor rights with impunity,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent labor rights organization.
“And it is vehemently opposed by powerful corporations across industrial sectors.”
PREVIOUS LEGISLATION
The legislation passed the House in September 2020 by a 406-3 vote. At that time, it faced headwi
nds in the Senate, especially on the Banking Committee, where some lawmakers were sensitive to corporate concerns about a stringent reporting requirement embedded in the text.
That provision, which would require companies to disclose the extent of a wide range of activities conducted in the Xinjiang region, was ultimately stripped out of the Senate bill, which passed unanimously in July.
But the measure languished, with neither the House nor the Senate interested in taking up the other’s bill.
The House advanced a larger China-focused measure that included a version of the Uyghur legislation with the reporting mandate intact, but the Senate declined to take it up.
Those issues are likely to crop up again as the bill passed by the House on Wednesday makes its way to the Senate.
The House on Wednesday also approved legislation admonishing the International Olympic Committee for “failing to adhere to its own human rights commitments” in the case of Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis star who disappeared shortly after accusing a former top government official of sexual assault.
In statements addressing the situation, the committee has refused to mention her assault claims and accepted Chinese government officials’ assurances that Peng is safe.