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WASHINGTON: The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday (Sept. 30) to force companies to disclose products that come from China’s Xinjiang region, in a fresh attempt to stop what lawmakers say is forced labor. widespread in the restless area.
The bill follows a broader law passed a week earlier that aims to ban imports from Xinjiang, claiming that abuses by the Uighur people are so widespread that all goods in the region must be considered made with slave labor.
“The exploitation and enslavement of Uighurs must end. Americans do not want to buy goods made with slave labor,” said Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat who led the latest effort.
The legislation would require all publicly traded companies to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission if they are involved in Xinjiang, one of the main sources of yarn for the global textile industry.
Unlike the broader Act, which passed almost unanimously, the Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act attracted opposition from a majority of Republicans but was passed 253-163 in the Democratic-led House.
His prospects are uncertain as he needs to clear up the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans and consumed by discussions about a Supreme Court nomination and COVID-19 relief a month before the election.
Republicans raised objections after concerns expressed by the US Chamber of Commerce, which said the regulations placed an impossible burden on legitimate businesses.
The business lobby drew a parallel to earlier efforts to label minerals from the conflict-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, saying that companies did not have a reliable way to certify whether products are abuse-free.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican, accused Bill’s backer Wexton of wanting to appear tough on China and said a better approach was to impose sanctions on officials, as President Donald Trump’s administration has done.
“The bill before us is nothing more than a press release for an election,” he said.
Wexton, whose district in northern Virginia has a large Uighur American community, scoffed at the suggestion, saying Republicans were ignoring abuses and “perhaps even genocide” in Xinjiang.
“Republicans speak a good game, but only if it doesn’t create any kind of burden on American corporations or their profit margins,” he said.
The Australian Institute for Strategic Policy in a recent report said it had identified more than 380 alleged detention centers where China is believed to have held more than a million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkish-speaking people.
