The US government has imposed trade sanctions on 11 companies it says are implicated in human rights abuses in China’s Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Monday’s announcement adds to US pressure on Beijing over Xinjiang, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is accused of mass detentions, forced labor and other abuses against Muslim minorities.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has also imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials over the accusations, and Beijing responded by announcing unspecified penalties on three US senators and a US representative who are critics of its human rights record.
Photo: AP
The US Department of Commerce said that the addition of the 11 companies to its Entity List would limit their access to US goods and technology. It gave no details of what goods might be affected.
“This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party’s despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations,” US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
China has detained an estimated 1 million or more members of the Uighur and other Muslim ethnic minority groups in internment camps.
The government describes them as vocational training facilities aimed at countering Muslim radicalism and separatist tendencies.
It says those facilities have since been closed, a claim that is impossible to confirm given the restrictions on visits and reporting about the region.
Veterans of the camps and family members say those held are forced, often with the threat of violence, to denounce their religion, culture and language and swear loyalty to CCP leader and President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The companies cited on Monday include clothing manufacturers and technology suppliers.
Two firms cited, Xinjiang Silk Road BGI and Beijing Liuhe BGI, are subsidiaries of BGI Group, one of the world’s biggest gene-sequencing companies.
The Commerce Department said that they were “conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression” of Muslim minorities.
Human rights groups say that security forces in Xinjiang appear to be creating a genetic database with samples from millions of people through using blood and other samples subjects are compelled to provide.
Nationwide, authorities have gathered genetic information from the Chinese public for almost two decades that the government says is for use in law enforcement.
Telephone calls yesterday to BGI’s public relations and investor relations departments were not answered.
Three of the companies cited were identified by investigations by The Associated Press in 2018 and this year as being implicated in forced labor.
One firm, Nanchang O-Film Tech, supplies screens and lenses to Apple, Samsung Electronics and other technology companies.
AP reporters found employees from Xinjiang at its factory in the southern city of Nanchang were not allowed out unaccompanied and were required to attend political classes.
US customs authorities seized a shipment from the second company, Hetian Haolin Hair Accessories, on suspicion it was made by forced labor.
People who worked for the third, Hetian Taida, which produces sportswear sold to US universities and sports teams, told AP that detainees were compelled to work there.
The Commerce Department imposed similar restrictions in October last year and in June on a total of 37 companies it said were “engaged in or enabling” abuses in Xinjiang.
It issued a warning on July 1 that companies that handle goods made by forced labor or that supply technology that might be used in labor camps or for surveillance might face unspecified “reputational, economic and legal risks.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the warning and said Beijing would take “necessary measures” to protect Chinese companies, but gave no details.
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