This story was originally published by Real Clear Wire
By Callista Gingrich
Really transparent thread
A report released on February 14 revealed that the Chinese Communist Party continues to target and enslave Uyghurs through the expansion of forced labor in China. Published by the Jamestown Foundation and authored by Beijing-banned academic Adrian Zenz, the report concluded: “Xinjiang currently operates the world’s largest system of state-mandated forced labor.”
Atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party against members of ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang have emerged in recent years, including the mass incarceration of more than 1 million civilians, forced sterilization, the separation of children from their families, torture, abuse, restrictions on religious freedom and forced labor.
While most of China is made up of the Han ethnic group, more than half the population of the northwestern region of Xinjiang is made up of ethnic minorities (predominantly Muslim Uyghurs) – which the Party has long sought to control.
In 2021, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo determined that the Chinese Communist Party was committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, a decision confirmed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
While the horrific methods used by the Party to subjugate these minority groups vary, the goal remains the same.
“It’s a strategy of control and assimilation,” Zenz told the New Yorker. “And it is designed to eliminate Uyghur culture.”
Forced labor systems in Xinjiang – punishable by imprisonment for non-compliance – are a key element in removing resistance and opposition to the CCP’s absolute authority and power. In his report, Zenz pointed to two dominant systems used to target Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
In one system, inmates in China’s infamous re-education camps received training in coercive skills before receiving coercive job placement. Prisoners considered less problematic were sentenced to hard labor, while others, such as prominent business and intellectual figures, were sentenced to long prison terms.
While it appears that this system is no longer in place, Zenz noted that the Chinese Communist Party is instead expanding its program of “poverty alleviation through labor transfer.” Zenz described this policy as “a system of non-state-enforced forced labor mobilization.”
A Chinese academic research report, the Nankai Report, described re-education camps as a “drastic short-term measure” and labor transfers as a “long-term method to reform, merge and assimilate” Uyghurs.
But the point is clear. “Xinjiang’s recent political changes have made forced labor less visible and more difficult to conceptualize,” Zenz wrote. “Uyghur forced labor is becoming increasingly widespread and increasingly insidious.”
The United States must take into account these findings that disguise forced labor as voluntary.
In 2021, Congress signed the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law. The law prohibits products made through the Chinese Communist Party’s forced labor programs from entering the U.S. market. However, numerous products linked to slave labor continue to evade legal protections and find their way into American households.
CPC House Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas outlining some of the key challenges to effectively enforcing this consequential law.
First, members wrote: “Companies transfer forced laborers from [Xinjiang] to other regions of the People’s Republic of China, complicating the situation [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] application of the alleged ban on the products of forced labor [Xinjiang].” Furthermore, “A second factor that compromises the application of the [law] it is Beijing’s increased transshipment of products of forced labor to the United States via third countries.”
Last week, to further augment and strengthen U.S. efforts to combat human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan, bicameral Uyghur Policy Act. This legislation, led by Congressman Young Kim, will authorize the State Department to appoint a special coordinator for Uighur issues, direct the U.S. Agency for Global Media to distribute information on the Uighur genocide, and authorize support for Uighur human rights activists .
As the Chinese Communist Party continues to target Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in China, the United States must strengthen enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and decide to sign the Uyghur Policy Act into law .
For additional comments from Ambassador Callista L. Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.