Uyghur Advocate Calls for US to Boycott Chinese Goods, Uphold Human Rights

Many solar panels made with slave labor

An employee works on the production of solar panels at a factory of GCL (Group) Holding Co., Ltd, in Hefei, Anhui province, China on Jan. 5, 2022. Photo by Ruan Xuefeng/VCG via Getty Images

The United States should not trade off human rights in China for a so-called green revolution, according to Salih Hudayar, the prime minister of the East Turkistan government-in-exile.

On April 28, a dozen Democrats joined Republicans on a resolution that would undo the Biden administration’s emergency move shielding some Chinese-made solar panels from tariffs. The resolution of disapproval advances to the Senate next.

The White House warned on April 24 that President Joe Biden would veto the legislation if it gets to his desk.

“This rule is necessary to satisfy the demand for reliable and clean energy while ensuring Commerce is able to rigorously enforce U.S. trade laws, hold trading partners accountable, and defend U.S. industries and workers from unfair trade actions,” the White House statement reads.

Circumventing Tariffs

The rule referenced by the White House statement put Biden’s emergency proclamation (pdf) into effect. The proclamation, issued in June of 2022, sought to waive tariffs on solar panels from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia for 24 months. A Department of Commerce rule issued in September of 2022 put it into effect.

Subsequently, however, a Commerce Department probe found that China’s solar manufacturers are evading U.S. tariffs by rerouting production through three of these Southeast Asian countries.

The probe—whose results were announced in December—revealed that BYD Hong Kong rerouted production through Cambodia, Canadian Solar and Trina routed production through Thailand, and Vina Solar routed production through Vietnam—specifically to evade U.S. tariffs on China-made solar panels.

The companies manufactured solar cells and modules in China, then sent them to one of the Southeast Asian countries for minor processing, after which they were exported to the United States.

Advocating for the Uyghur People

Hudayar spoke with The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD’s “China in Focus“ program on May 9. He is an advocate for the human rights of the Uyghur people and for the independence of East Turkistan, also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The region in northwest China is the source of much of the world’s polysilicon, a material that is used in almost all solar modules. The industry relies on forced labor by Uyghur workers. It is just one of many documented human rights abuses in the region, along with the incarceration of an estimated 1.8 million people in detention camps.

Hudayar pointed to the White House statement, saying “President Biden needs to be more tough on China, as he promised from the beginning. He promised to uphold human rights, and he needs to act upon his promises.”

“They need to completely ban all solar panels that are made either directly in China or outside of China by Chinese-owned companies,” he said.

Solar Panels Made by Slave Labor

According to Hudayar, evidence points to the fact that Chinese solar panels are made with Uyghur slave labor in Xinjiang, China.

“Starting in 2014, when China rolled out its concentration camps, polysilicon production or solar panel production in East Turkestan amounted to not even 9 percent of global production. By 2019, [it] went to over 50 percent. And I think, as of 2020, [it went] to somewhere around 60 percent,” he said.

“So, there’s no doubt that the solar panels that are being manufactured in China or by Chinese factories that are being manufactured in third countries to evade, for example, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act [are] being tainted by components that are made with forced labor,” he added.

Hudayar stressed that it is unacceptable to cooperate with China in this regard, even to address climate change.

“How can you cooperate with a country that’s engaging in genocide, that’s engaging in mass human rights violations, atrocities across the board against all of its people, let alone the people of East Turkistan or Tibet, or the Falun Gong?”  he questioned.

“I think that the United States government needs to make it clear that ‘we’re not going to cooperate with you on anything unless you address these issues.

“First, human rights should be a priority, or else, how are we going to benefit from the solar panels that are made with slave labor, when if anything we will have been contributing to that slave labor?” he added.

Boycotting Chinese Goods

President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law in December of 2021. The law, which bans imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless the importer can prove that the products were not produced using forced labor, went into effect in June of 2022.

Yet, in Hudayar’s opinion, the best-case scenario is to simply boycott all goods that are made in China, or that have components made with forced labor.

“I think American companies need to pull out of China. We need to invest in other countries where they’re not engaging in genocide or mass human rights violations. We need to divest from China, bring back part of the production back into the United States if we can,” he said.

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.