The law is supposed to deal a significant blow to the Chinese cotton and textile industries and maybe to the wobbling Chinese economy as a whole.
The law establishes a belief that all products from China’s Xinjiang province are spoiled with forced labor, a crime against humanity performed by the Chinese government against the Uyghur Muslims, and bans importing such products into the United States. Importers are asked to document their supply chains in detail to confirm their components and raw materials were not made with forced labor.
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The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act theoretically allows products and materials sourced to Xinjiang, yet just if importers can provide “clear and convincing evidence” they were not made or harvested with forced labor – a hurdle Human Rights Watch (HRW) approvingly described as “near impossible” to clear.
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“The new U.S. law means it’s no longer business as usual for companies profiting from forced labor in China, and Xinjiang especially. Companies should swiftly identify any supply chain links to Xinjiang and exit the region or risk violating U.S. law and seeing their goods detained at the U.S. border,” HRW senior researcher Jim Wormington announced on Monday.
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“We are rallying our allies and partners to make global supply chains free from the use of forced labor, to speak out against atrocities in Xinjiang, and to join us in calling on the government of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to immediately end atrocities and human rights abuses, including forced labor,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Tuesday when declaring the implementation of the UFLPA has started.
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Voice of America News (VOA) stressed the new U.S. law predictably “upset the Chinese government,” which insists all accounts of Uyghur oppression are “vicious lies.”
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“But the act is also causing concern among some U.S. businesses, which say the federal government has not provided sufficient guidance on steps they must take to avoid having imports seized at the U.S. border,” VOA continued.
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A common complaint from those business managers and analysts is that supply chains are complicated, and vetting every link in them for products linked to Xinjiang – and then maybe undertaking the Herculean job of certifying that materials sourced to Xinjiang were not produced with forced labor – will add huge costs to imports at a time when consumers are already reeling from sky-high inflation.
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