Washington: In a move that has irked Beijing, United States President Joe Biden has signed a bill into law to block imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove the items were made without forced labour.
“Today, I signed the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure supply chains are free from the use of forced labor — including from Xinjiang and other parts of China,” President Biden tweeted.
The legislation signed by President Biden earlier on Thursday comes over concerns about China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the move stating President Biden’s approval of the law underscored Washington’s commitment to combatting forced labor, including in the context of the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.
“The State Department is committed to working with Congress and our interagency partners to continue addressing forced labor in Xinjiang and to strengthen international action against this egregious violation of human rights,” Blinken said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley on his part said that it was necessary to “send a resounding and unequivocal message against genocide and slave labor”.
“Now ... we can finally ensure that American consumers and businesses can buy goods without inadvertent complicity in China’s horrific human rights abuses,” Merkley, one of the co-authors of this bill, said in a statement.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is part of the United States’ pushback against Beijing’s treatment of China’s Uyghur Muslim minority.
The businesses will now have to prove that forced labour, including by workers transferred from Xinjiang, was not used in manufacturing the product before it will be allowed into the United States, AP reported.
China has, however, denied any abuses categorically stating the steps it has taken are necessary to combat terrorism and a separatist movement.
The Chinse embassy in Washington has said the act “ignores the truth and maliciously slanders the human rights situation in Xinjiang”.
“This is a severe violation of international law and norms of international relations, and a gross interference in China's internal affairs. China strongly condemns and firmly rejects it,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement.