This is the third of a series of four articles examining the political risk concerns related to human rights abuses in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

 East Turkestan (better known under its Chinese name “Xinjiang”) was incorporated into the PRC in 1949, and acquired the status of “Autonomous Region” in 1955. While said status is supposed to guarantee some level of self-government in the hands of local ethnic minorities (in this case, Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim communities), the opposite is true. The people of East Turkestan have long been subjected to repression at the hands of the PRC. Human rights abuses in the region have also escalated since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and have culminated with the establishment of internment camps after Xi Jinping’s accession to power in 2012.

Since the Uyghers were brought to the attention of the media in 2017, the human rights abuses perpetrated in East Turkestan have been denounced by NGOs, academics, and politicians across the globe. On August 31, 2022, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) published its long-delayed assessment of the situation of ‘human rights concerns’. The most commonly denounced feature of the PRC’s repression in the region is the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in so-called “Vocational Education and Training Centres” – in other words, internment camps - where they are subjected to forced labour, torture, sexual abuse, and other forms of ill-treatment. As in the case of Tibet, the authorities’ control is multidimensional and pervasive, infringing on the local population’s rights to religion, language, education and overall cultural identity, privacy, freedom of movement, as well as workers’ and reproductive rights.

Like in other parts of China, Western firms such as Siemens which are partnering with tech companies operating in East Turkestan have been accused of complicity in state-run surveillance programs that specifically target the region’s ethnic minorities, thereby facilitating their identification and internment in the aforementioned camps. In such cases, the human rights concerns intersect with the globally contentious legal issue of data privacy. As a result, governmental efforts have been made to prevent Western tech firms from exporting commodities or software to Chinese companies involved in the surveillance and detention of Uyghurs.

However, the majority of public scrutiny has focused on foreign companies that have part of their supply chain operating in East Turkestan given the high risk of manufacturers being tied to forced labour drawn from internment camps. Campaigners have targeted many firms sourcing raw material from the region to confront them about their local employment practices. Most of the attention has focused on the local cotton industry, which accounts for 20% of the production worldwide; other products at risk of involving forced labour include tomato paste, hair wigs, polysilicon, and viscose.

Over the past years, Western countries have issued various bans and regulations to discourage firms from conducting business in the region, emphasising the legal and reputational risks incurred. One of the most recent measures is the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which enjoins Washington to take more rigorous action to prevent goods produced in East Turkestan from entering US markets.

As a result, some of the biggest retail companies worldwide have come under close examination by national authorities, often resulting in calls for boycott. For example, in 2021, a shipment of Uniqlo shirts was seized by US Customs on suspicion of containing East Turkestan-sourced cotton – this in spite of a statement released previously by Uniqlo’s parent company affirming that none of its products were manufactured in the region. Major automotive companies also appear to be linked to Uyghur forced labour through their suppliers. Among them, Volkswagen has come under fire for maintaining its operations within the region. 

Amid growing media outrage, Western firms such as Nike, H&M, Burberry, Adidas, and Converse have publicly expressed their concern regarding the use of Uyghur forced labour in cotton production, thereby exposing themselves to backlash in the PRC. Once a company steps out and condemns human rights abuses in East Turkestan, they typically face being blocked on online platforms or having their stores removed from online maps. Beijing also responded to sanctions imposed on Chinese officials by the US, EU, UK, and Canada, with an anti-sanctions law presaging retaliation measures. According to Tam Yiu-chung, the Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the latter could include denial of entry into China, deportation, the freezing or seizing of individual property or assets, and the restricting of institutions from conducting transactions with targeted individuals or organisations.