The list compiled by the US Department of Commerce covers a variety of companies, including biotech companies and those that make wigs and appliances. US authorities claim that several of them use “forced labor involving Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups” in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. He accused others of connections with “genetic testing used to promote repression” of those groups.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement Monday that the restrictions would ensure that the United States’ goods and technology are not used in “the Chinese Communist Party’s contemptible offensive against defenseless Muslim minorities.”
Washington did not detail which US companies do business with licensed Chinese companies. But Apple (AAPL)Calvin Klein and Nike (NKE)They have partnered with some of the listed companies, among others, according to a report published in June by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). The report examined the use of Uighur labor in China, alleging that those people are “working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors.”
Tensions between the United States and China have escalated for months. while the two fight for trade and technology, leading to friction between companies that depend on a strong economic relationship between the world’s greatest powers.
This is also not the first time that Washington has sanctioned Chinese companies over Xinjiang. Last October, the US government called 28 Chinese companies, government offices and security offices for their alleged role in facilitating human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
China’s western Xinjiang region is culturally and ethnically different from much of the rest of the country, with a large Turkish minority population, and for years has had an awkward relationship with the Beijing government.
As of 2015, up to two million Muslim-majority Uyghurs and other Turkish minorities have been imprisoned in huge re-education camps in Xinjiang, as part of a region-wide crackdown by Beijing, according to the U.S. State Department.
Chinese officials have long advocated repression in Xinjiang as necessary to combat extremism and in accordance with Chinese law and international practice.
“The United States abuses export control measures under the guise of so-called human rights,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday. “This violates the basic norms of international relations, interferes with China’s internal affairs and harms China’s interests.”
In recent weeks, Washington has also stepped up efforts to sanction Chinese products produced with forced labor.
On July 1, the United States Customs and Border Protection confiscated 13 tons of human hair in products originating in Xinjiang. A week later, the United States Treasury Department announced sanctions against four Chinese Communist Party and Xinjiang Public Security Bureau officials for human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
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