Apple, Nike and other major companies implicated in Muslim forced labour in China

[loomer]

Apple, Nike and other major companies implicated in Muslim forced labour in China
By Max Walden

Key points:

The UN says more than 1 million Uyghurs are detained in Xinjiang
ASPI's research claims that thousands of Uyghurs are being forcibly moved across China to work
Beijing has denied abuses against Muslim minorities as "fake news"

Dozens of popular companies including Apple, Nike, Adidas, Uniqlo and Skechers have suppliers linked to forced labour in China involving Muslim minorities, according to a new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Drawing upon open-source Chinese language documentation, satellite imagery, media reporting and academic research, the report entitled Uyghurs for Sale identifies some 83 well-known consumer brands linked to factories where Muslim minorities are thought to be working in forced labour conditions across China.

It reports that 80,000 Uyghur workers were transferred out of Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019, claiming that people are being effectively "bought" and "sold" by local governments and commercial brokers.

"Officials and private brokers receive money for every Uyghur person they manage to transfer. The recipient companies receive a cash inducement for every Uyghur they take," Vicky Xu, an ASPI researcher and lead author of the report, told the ABC.

"Everyone involved in this transfer scheme benefits except for Uyghur workers."

More than a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are thought to be detained in what the Communist Party calls vocational education centres but which are referred to by the UN as "re-education camps".

Some have observed it is likely the largest-scale incarceration of people based on religion since the Holocaust.

Movement of thousands of people on 'segregated trains'

The ASPI report claims that "Uyghur workers are often transported across China in special segregated trains" and that authorities and factory bosses continue to closely monitor them.

"The goal of these labour transfers are political," said Ms Xu, primarily aimed at "stripping [Uyghurs] of their unique culture and identity".

"At these factories, they continue to undergo organised Mandarin studies and indoctrination programs."

ASPI reported that O-Film, which manufactures selfie cameras for Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and Samsung, has 700 Uyghur workers who were transferred from Xinjiang and forced to "gradually alter their ideology" and "understand the Party's blessing".

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the company's factory in Guangzhou in December 2017, and according to ASPI, at the time praised its "humane approach towards employees".

A statement supplied to the ABC said: "Apple is dedicated to ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

"We have not seen this report but we work closely with all our suppliers to ensure our high standards are upheld."

The Washington Post visited a factory which supplies 8 million pairs of Nike shoes annually and described a situation where Uyghur "graduates" of re-education camps had been forcibly moved to Laixi in eastern China.

"The Uyghurs had to come because they didn't have an option. The government sent them here," a local businessperson told the Post.

Nike did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.
Chinese businesses 'think it's a positive thing'

China is only one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the International Labour Organisation's Forced Labour Convention.

According to the watchdog organisation Global Slavery Index, forced labour is prevalent in China's "production of labour-intensive, cheap goods for export".

The ABC requested comment from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the ASPI report but had not received a response by time of publication.

But the ruling Communist Party has denied Muslims are detained en masse, with China's ambassador to Australia last year dismissing Western news reports as "fake news".

Ms Xu emphasised that much of the information included in the ASPI report came from publicly-available Chinese-language media, however.


Photo: A translation of an online advertisement in China claims "trainees" from Xinjiang are ready to be "ordered". (Australian Strategic Policy Institute)

"Chinese factories and Chinese media think it's a positive thing that these Uyghurs are being moved away and are working under semi-military conditions and management," she said.

"They don't know how bad this looks to the rest of the world."

The president of Anhui province-based manufacturer HYP — which claims to supply sports brands Fila, Adidas, Puma and Nike — is quoted by ASPI as telling local media that he chose Xinjiang workers because "although the quality of North Korean workers is good, I'm reluctant to spend money on foreign workers".

Last year, the ABC reported that Japanese clothing brands Muji and Uniqlo were advertising "Xinjiang cotton" products, despite concerns about forced labour. Both are named in the ASPI report.

Some of the other brands named, including Abercrombie & Fitch, have since ended their relationships with suppliers accused of using forced labour.

While the Chinese tightly control access to Xinjiang for journalists, and claim the high-security camps are simply vocational training centres, evidence collated by media outlets, rights groups and researchers has increasingly painted a picture of widespread repression and abuses.

Australia has been a vocal critic of China's mass detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

Those living outside the camps are also subject to mass surveillance, with Beijing declaring it wants to "Sinicise Islam" — a hardline policy increasingly referred to by observers as "cultural genocide" against the Turkic minority group.

Dozens of Australian citizens have been caught by the dragnet of China's crackdown against Muslims in Xinjiang, many of whom have family members detained in the province.

More literal slavery out of China, but now with added genocide for 110% of your daily recommended crimes against humanity. Cool and normal!

[AniThyng]

A strong and powerful Chinese state will ensure overseas Chinese
minorities are no longer bullied or oppressed. Surely then this article must be racist lies by China's enemies, who are fearful of its inexorable rise to world superpower. /s

[loomer]

Look, obviously slavery is bad unless it's Slavery with Chinese Characteristics. That's just a fact of political science.

[Darth Yan]

You kinda expect it but are still disgusted when you read the details. God Damn It.

[The Romulan Republic]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

[ray245]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

Middle class consumerism is largely built upon the desire to have things as cheap as possible.

[loomer]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

Given that wide-spread genocidal campaigns and the open mass theft of the world's resources only began to be frowned on sixty years ago, is it really that surprising?

[Broomstick]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

The problem is that slavery is profitable. Fucking profitable. The greedy don't care that it's morally wrong and causes suffering to other people, they're getting rich! And most of them will try to justify it in their own minds, saying that it's somehow or other benefiting the oppressed to be oppressed. While using police and military because all those ungrateful wretches don't see the benefits of being oppressed, abused, and traumatized.

On reading this story, though, I'm a bit gobsmacked that that I've managed to avoid buying anything from any of the named companies. Which doesn't guarantee the companies I do buy from aren't also guilty, I know, but I seem to have dodged a few moral bullets there. Also, I don't really buy much other than food and toiletries these days. Which, again, doesn't guarantee I haven't been an unwitting party to exploitation.

[aerius]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

There's no escaping child slave labour if you own any piece of modern technology. Anything that's powered by lithium-ion batteries contains cobalt in the battery, most of the cobalt in the world comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it's mined with child slave labour. So let's say you don't have a cell phone or laptop, and you only use a desktop computer. Every piece of modern electronics has tantalum capacitors inside, wanna guess where tantalum is mined? That would be our friends in the DRC, Rwanda, and various other countries in Africa & South America, many of which also use child slave labour. Do you hate the fossil fuel industry and support renewables? Well, lemme tell you where all the rare earth metals used in the production of wind turbine generators and solar panels come from. Oh yeah, that would be our friends in the child slave labour countries and China.

Bottom line, we've all got blood on our hands, lots of it.

[Eulogy]

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

Silly TRR, when has the PRC learned much of anything these past few decades?

On reading this story, though, I'm a bit gobsmacked that that I've managed to avoid buying anything from any of the named companies. Which doesn't guarantee the companies I do buy from aren't also guilty, I know, but I seem to have dodged a few moral bullets there. Also, I don't really buy much other than food and toiletries these days. Which, again, doesn't guarantee I haven't been an unwitting party to exploitation.

That just means that you only need to keep up your unwitting boycott of said slavery supporters Broomie. Vote with your wallet and all that.

[madd0ct0r]

I bought an Apple laptop not too long ago. Definitely regretting that now.

Jesus Christ, you'd think by this point in history people would have grasped the concept that slavery and genocide=wrong.

There's no escaping child slave labour if you own any piece of modern technology. Anything that's powered by lithium-ion batteries contains cobalt in the battery, most of the cobalt in the world comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it's mined with child slave labour. So let's say you don't have a cell phone or laptop, and you only use a desktop computer. Every piece of modern electronics has tantalum capacitors inside, wanna guess where tantalum is mined? That would be our friends in the DRC, Rwanda, and various other countries in Africa & South America, many of which also use child slave labour. Do you hate the fossil fuel industry and support renewables? Well, lemme tell you where all the rare earth metals used in the production of wind turbine generators and solar panels come from. Oh yeah, that would be our friends in the child slave labour countries and China.

Bottom line, we've all got blood on our hands, lots of it.

There are some options. Fairtrade gold exists. There's good/better tin scheme in drc as well as the bad ones. https://www.fairphone.com/en/impact/fai ... -sourcing/