The US State Department on Wednesday in an advisory warned American compes of the potential exposure they could face from maintaining supply chains with entities that engage in human rights abuses in Xinjiang, or elsewhere in China, and the associated economic, and legal risks of such involvement.
"Today, the U.S. Department of State, along with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is issuing an advisory to caution businesses about the risks of supply chain links to entities that engage in human rights abuses, including forced labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China," the State Department said in a statement.
"Since 2017, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up its campaign of systematic repression of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups that includes widespread arbitrary detention and forced labor. Targeted against ethnic and religious minorities, the People's Republic of China's use of forced labor is no longer confined to the Xinjiang region but is increasingly taking place across China through PRC government-facilitated arrangements with private-sector manufacturers," it added further.
A New York-based think tank has said in its report that the Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China's northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Human rights orgzations, UN officials, and many foreign governments are urging China to stop the crackdown. But Chinese officials maintain that what they call vocational training centers do not infringe on Uighurs' human rights. They have refused to share information about the detention centers and prevented journalists and foreign investigators from examining them. However, internal Chinese government documents leaked in late 2019 have provided important details on how officials launched and maintain the detention camps.
In late May, the US' House of Representative also voted overwhelmingly to pass the Uighur Human Rights Bill, a measure that would punish top Chinese officials for detaining more than one million Muslims in internment camps, sending Trump a legislation intended to force him to take a more aggressive stand on human rights abuses in China.
( With inputs from ANI )