The fashion industry has been told it must wean itself off cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, as a new law comes into force giving US border authorities greater powers to block or seize goods linked to forced labor in China.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which came into force yesterday, assumes that any product partly or wholly made in Xinjiang is linked to the region’s labor camps.
Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained as many as 1 million Uighurs and subjected them to forced labor.
Photo: Reuters
The fashion industry would be particularly affected by the new law. About 20 percent of the world’s cotton comes from China and 84 percent of that comes from Xinjiang.
The UFLPA has designated cotton a “high priority for enforcement,” along with tomatoes and polysilicon. Any fashion brand exporting to the US would also be subject to it and failure to provide adequate certification or supply-chain details could result in fines of up to US$250,000.
However, the ban poses big problems for the industry.
Liv Simpliciano of Fashion Revolution said Xinjiang cotton is ubiquitous in supply chains.
“The difficulty is that at the ginning stage [when fibers are separated from their seeds], cotton from disparate locations is mixed together, making it impossible to trace the provenance,” she said.
A number of technology companies, among them TrusTrace, SupplyShift and TextileGenesis, plan to use blockchain and artificial intelligence to trace supply chains for fashion labels. Brands can use the platforms to log all their purchase orders and certifications.
To prove conclusively an absence of Xinjiang cotton, brands would need to show a “complete digital chain of custody, where a brand is fully in control of its supply chain from the farm onwards,” TrusTrace chief executive officer Shameek Ghosh said.
While fashion has historically been notoriously cagey about its supply chains, there is now a strong business case for full transparency.
A report by the financial think tank Planet Tracker said that implementing traceability “can improve net profit on average by 3 to 7 percent for apparel companies.”
That is before any fashion stock has been impounded by border forces.
Because of General Data Protection Regulation, TrusTrace is not alerted if Xinjiang cotton is found in a brand’s supply chain.
“Only the brand is informed,” Ghosh said. “They wouldn’t use a platform like this [if they’d be exposed].”
However, blockchain technology is not without its problems.
“If you’re relying on brand discretion to ratify their sourcing practices, then what’s the efficacy going to be?” Philippa Grogan of Eco-Age asked.
“Also, blockchain technology is not regulated, so it creates a risk environment — the lack of regulatory oversight makes it vulnerable to market manipulation,” she said.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
OVER THE HUMP: In a seven-day period ending on Wednesday, the nation reported 366,628 new cases, down 19 percent from the 451,358 reported in the previous week The nation might further open up to more arrivals in the next two months, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 48,283 new local COVID-19 cases, down from more than 50,000 in the previous few days. Taiwan on Wednesday last week introduced a plan to allow up to 25,000 arrivals per week as part of efforts to gradually reopen borders, which includes reducing mandatory quarantines for inbound travelers from seven to three days, followed by four days in “self-initiated epidemic prevention.” The quota covers inbound Taiwanese arrivals, businesspeople and migrant workers. Former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it is monitoring Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship movements near Taiwan, after the Japanese Ministry of Defense disclosed that Chinese vessels made a rare voyage between Yilan County and Japan’s Yonaguni. The Japanese ministry on Wednesday said that two Chinese navy ships on Tuesday diverted from their usual route of entering the Pacific Ocean via the Miyako Strait and for the first time traveled there between Yilan and Yonaguni. The Japan Self-Defense Forces said that it picked up the presence of China’s Type-056A Jiangdao-class corvette 220km north of Yonaguni at 9am on Tuesday. The
CECC UPDATE: Officials said the definition of a confirmed COVID-19 case has been revised to include those who are positive in a PCR home test confirmed by a doctor The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that it would probably list monkeypox as a category 2 notifiable communicable disease today or tomorrow. The WHO is to convene an emergency committee meeting today in accordance with the International Health Regulations to discuss whether the spread of monkeypox to 39 countries, including 32 non-endemic countries, constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. On Tuesday, the Singaporean Ministry of Health confirmed its first imported case of monkeypox, which is also the first case reported in Southeast Asia. South Korea yesterday reported its first confirmed case of monkeypox — a South Korean national who
RSS