The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list of firms whose products can no longer be exported to the United States, as part of what it described as an escalating crackdown on companies that support forced labor programs in Xinjiang.
The companies include a seafood processor, Shandong Meijia Group, which was identified in an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project as employing workers brought to eastern China from Xinjiang – a region in China’s far west where the government has a large Numbers of minorities have been detained and monitored, including Uyghurs.
Another company, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, is an aluminum processor whose metal is found in cars, consumer electronics and other products, a U.S. official said. The third company, Dongguan Oasis Shoes, brought Uighurs and people from other persecuted groups to its shoe factory in Guangdong, the U.S. government said.
With these new additions, 68 companies now appear on the so-called entity list of companies that the US government says are participating in forced labor programs, almost twice as many as at the beginning of the year.
Robert Silvers, undersecretary of state at the Department of Homeland Security and chairman of a committee that monitors the list, said the administration is accelerating the pace of additions to the list and that the public should expect that to continue.
“We will hold companies accountable if they engage in forced labor,” he said.
Cotton and tomato processing industries were among the first to anticipate links in their supply chains to fields in Xinjiang. But in recent years, companies that make solar panels, flooring, cars, electronics, seafood and other goods have discovered that they, too, use components made in Xinjiang.
The United States enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act two years ago to ban imports made in whole or in part in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government is running programs in the region to relocate groups of local people to factories, fields and mines around Xinjiang and other parts of China. Authorities say these programs are aimed at alleviating poverty, but human rights experts say they are often based on coercion.
The two-year-old law also created the Entity List, a list of companies that U.S. officials have linked to forced labor programs. The government did not initially add many companies to the list, despite the reported size of Xinjiang’s work programs.
Mr Silvers said the list “necessarily requires a ramp-up period”.
“We had no procedures, no personnel, no traffic rules for this work,” he said. He added that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act does not provide new funding for the department. “So we dug deep and diverted resources from other areas to focus on this priority area,” he said.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement that the department would do so Continue to investigate companies that use forced labor and hold those companies accountable. “We urge stakeholders from industry, civil society and our international partners to work with us to eliminate the scourge of forced labor,” he said.
Last month, the ministry announced that 26 companies from the clothing and textile industry had been added to the list. It will continue to announce further additions as evidence emerges that a designation is warranted, Mr Silvers said.
Last month, major automakers were forced to stop their products at U.S. ports after they were found to be importing a part made by a company that uses forced labor in Xinjiang.
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2024-06-11 15:12:55
www.nytimes.com
