Senate Finance Committee Demands Answers From Automakers on Possible Ties to Xinjiang Forced Labor

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) speaks to reporters in Washington on Aug. 6, 2022. Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images

The Senate Finance Committee has launched a probe into whether leading automakers are using materials made with forced labor from China’s far west Xinjiang region, where the Chinese regime is engaging in a systematic campaign of repression on Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, sent letters on Dec. 22 to the top executives of automakers Tesla, General Motors, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Toyota, and Volkswagen, reminding them that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act bars the importation of goods made in Xinjiang unless a company can demonstrate that the items were made without forced labor.

“Unless due diligence confirms that components are not linked to forced labor, automakers cannot and should not sell cars in the United States that include components mined or produced in Xinjiang,” Wyden wrote.

“The United States considers the Chinese government’s brutal oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang an ‘ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity.’”

He took this action on the basis of a recent report, Driving Force: Automotive Supply Chains and Forced Labor in the Uyghur Region, prepared by a team of researchers under the auspices of the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

“Every major car brand—including Volkswagen, BMW, Honda, Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Stellantis brands (like Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep), Tesla and NIO—is at high risk of sourcing from companies linked to abuses in the Uyghur region,” the center said in a statement accompanying the report.

The report lists a series of key findings, including the presence of 96 manufacturing, mining, or processing companies related to the car industry that operate in the region of Xinjiang, and, among these companies, at least 38 are known to be involved with state-sponsored labor transfer programs. It found that more than 40 car industry manufacturers in China source materials and/or components either from the region or from firms that have made use of Uyghur labor transfers.

More than 50 international auto part providers or car manufacturers source from companies active in the Uyghur region or making use of labor transfers, the report states, and more than 100 auto part providers or car makers with “some exposure” to Uyghur forced labor.

The report noted that Baowu, China’s state-owned steel champion and the largest steel supplier in the world, also happens to be the biggest steel producer in Xinjiang, and “prolifically” makes use of labor transfers undertaken in collaboration with government programs.

“Transferred Uyghur laborers marched for hours to factories during Covid lockdowns, then quarantined on-site in sub-standard housing to keep producing steel,” the report reads.

Aluminum, copper, battery, and electronics production also make extensive use of Uyghur labor, in some cases requiring the Uyghurs to toil in dangerous, overheated, chemically compromised environments under the oversight of armed guards, according to the report.

Wyden directed a series of questions at the CEOs of the automakers, aimed at establishing whether they’ve done proper diligence on their supply chains, including mapping and analysis of mining, processing, manufacturing, and raw materials to determine whether the supply chains have a connection to Xinjiang. He also asks whether the automakers have terminated, pared back, or threatened to end or curtail a business relationship with a supplier or sub-supplier because of the entity’s involvement with Xinjiang forced labor or its failure to undertake proper diligence around the issue.

Representatives for the automakers didn’t respond by press time to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.