Import ban will target forced labor in China
Senate approves tough new standards for imports from Xinjiang region
WASHINGTON — Senators gave final congressional approval Thursday to a bill barring imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove they were produced without forced labor.
The measure is the latest in a series of intensifying U.S. penalties over China’s alleged systemic and widespread abuse of ethnic and religious minorities in the western region, especially Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim Uyghurs. The Biden administration also announced new sanctions Thursday targeting several Chinese biotech and surveillance companies, a leading drone manufacturer and government entities for their actions in Xinjiang.
The Senate vote sends the bill to President Joe Biden. Press secretary Jen Psaki said this week Biden supported the measure, after months of the White House declining to take a public stand on an earlier version of the legislation.
The United States says China is committing genocide in its treatment of the Uyghurs. That includes widespread reports by rights groups and journalists of forced sterilization and large detention camps where many Uyghurs allegedly are compelled to work in factories.
China denies any abuses. It says the steps it has taken are necessary to combat terrorism and a separatist movement.
The U.S. cites raw cotton, gloves, tomato products, silicon, viscose, fishing gear and a range of components in solar energy as some of the goods alleged to have been produced with the help of the forced labor.
“Many companies have already taken steps to clean up their supply chains. And, frankly, they should have no concerns about this law,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who introduced the earlier version of the legislation with Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, said in a statement.
“For those who have not done that, they’ll no longer be able to continue to make Americans — every one of us, frankly — unwitting accomplices in the atrocities, in the genocide,” Rubio said.
As in the House earlier this week, the compromise version passed the Senate with overwhelming approval from Democrats and Republicans. The swift passage came after what supporters said was offstage opposition from corporations with manufacturing links to China, although there was little to no overt opposition.
Apple’s lobbying firm lobbied on Apple’s behalf, a federal disclosure form shows. Apple, like Nike and other corporations with work done in China, says it has found no sign of forced labor from Xinjiang in its manufacturing or supply chain.
Advocates credited unrelenting support from rights groups and lawmakers, including statements from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with helping the bill prevail.
With the legislation, sanctions and months of other new measures, “the United States is way ahead” of the international community on confronting China on abuses of Uyghurs, said Nury Turkel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
How can anyone get China to change “without going after the most important thing to the Chinese government, which is their economic interest?” asked Turkel.
The legislation creates a presumption that goods coming from Xinjiang are made with forced labor. Businesses will have to prove forced labor played no part in a product to bring it into the United States.