America's largest companies are facing a backlash due to the passage of a new U.S. law that prohibits imports from the Xinjiang region in China, where the U.S. government and human rights advocates claim that businesses use forced labor to make essential building blocks of the modern global economy, like cotton-based fabrics and silicon.
Walmart Inc., the world's largest retailer, is one of several U.S. firms that have been criticised on Chinese social media because of the new law to rid its shelves of products that have been made with parts from the Muslim-majority region, according to a Monday report in the Wall Street Journal.
According to the report, a user of Weibo accused the company of eating Chinese rice but slapping their face, and others said they would cancel their Sam's Club membership. China's Communist Youth League urged the public to engage in further Walmart boycotts, while a state newspaper ran a story Friday about public anger over the company removing Xinxiang-sourced goods from its Chinese website.
President Joe Biden has signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act, which requires companies to prove that supplies from the Xinxiang region are not produced with forced labor. The Biden administration has previously said that the Chinese government is engaged in genocide and other crimes against humanity against the Uyghur ethnic group, a predominantly Muslim population in the Northwestern part of the country.
Industry groups and trade associations have expressed concern that the law will put companies in a difficult position, given the importance of the region in supply chains for apparel, electronics, and solar panels, which are a critical product for the administration s goal of reducing carbon emissions.
The law will shift the burden on companies to show that there is not a use of forced labor in a region's products and I think it is going to have a huge impact on importers, John Cotton Richmond, former ambassador-at-large for anti-trafficking, told Politico. If all of the U.S. business withdraws from Xinjiang, Uyghurs that are currently exploited are going to be driven into poverty, there is going to be a potential humanitarian crisis. According to the New York Times, the companies including Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple lobbied Congress and the administration to craft new rules in a way that would reduce the burdens on their supply chains, but all three say they support the bill's objective of eliminating forced labor.
Intel Corp. INTC issued a Chinese-language statement on Thursday on its official WeChat and Weibo accounts after it sent a letter to suppliers directing them to avoid sourcing products from Xinjiang. The statement said that the paragraphs in the letter regarding Xinjiang are intended to be a statement of compliance and legality and are not meant to express its intent or position.
Many U.S. companies are trying to balance U.S. law, maintaining orderly supply chains, and not running afoul of public opinion in China. The New York Times reported that government officials were worried about the law that forces companies to source outside of Xinjiang, which produces upwards of one-fifth of the world s cotton and is a major producer of other critical components, which could cause inflation at a time when U.S. consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace in nearly 40 year highs.
She said that clean energy is important and that we need to improve it. It is not something that the U.S. or the government should do on the backs of people who are working under modern-day slavery.