‘Forced labor’ opportunism and disinformation strike again

The United States recently blacklisted two Chinese firms, Camel Group, a battery manufacturer, and Chenguang Biotech Group, a spice and extract manufacturer, accusing them of having employed so-called “forced labor” in their manufacturing, and banning their products from entry into the United States. A US spokesman claimed that the blacklisting was to hold China to account for “genocide and crimes against humanity”.

This is not the first time that the US has used falsified accusations of “forced labor” in order to ban specific Chinese products. The theme has repeated itself over the past three years, including products such as cotton, tomatoes and solar panels.

Now, however, the emphasis is turning to batteries. This is because the US sees batteries as a critical strategic good in its competition with China over renewables, and is therefore doing what it always does, resorting to bad faith tactics in order to further the ends of protectionism.

The US bans Chinese goods based on political, strategic and economic motivations. The utilization of allegations of “forced labor”, which are never truly substantiated, is an opportunistic pretense in order to target certain items, whose production is perceived to be dominated by China, in order to facilitate supply chain shifts favorable to US objectives.

This has been a consistent goal of US foreign policy, which repeatedly uses supply chain “resilience” and “diversification” as excuses for excluding China, and attempts to move other countries in the same direction.

As a result, allegations of “forced labor” are repeatedly pushed by US government-funded think-tanks or organizations in order to fulfill, justify and manufacture consent for these objectives, which are then amplified by the media.

As one example of this, the firm which first published allegations of “forced labor” in the solar panel supply chain, in line with the objectives