With unique and progressing society China’s economy has enjoyed more than 3 decades of exceptional growth, making it the world’s largest. It is the largest trading nation in the world and plays a prominent role in international trade and has increasingly engaged in trade organizations and treaties in recent years.
The formula behind the success of China is its foreign policy conduct which is based on non- intervention and promotion of multilateralism. But with the rise of China there are evidences of American and western backed strategy to contain China. We know that Human rights are crucially important but when countries around the world raise selective issues for their own purpose this makes the abuse of Human rights apparatus. Overall the world has failed to protect human rights and there is an increased trend of using related instruments for political aims, and intervening in States’ domestic affairs. It seems apparatus of Human Rights were used as a tool to defame China to thwart its economic plans that aimed for the progress of developing countries. The Human rights debate was also used to provoke a lack of trust among the partners of Beijing in Asia, Africa, Australia, EU and in the American continent.
The year 2020 was regrettably been looks like a year of Western crackdown against China and continuation of such policies during last few years. It was a failed policy and certain events proved that cold war like confrontational strategy is not working for any party whether it is the business stake holders from the West or the people living in Xinjiang.
We witness during the year 2020 that there were numbers of allegations put on China, basic theme applied was the so called suppression of minorities in Xinjiang and the allegation of using the forced labor in supply chain from Xinjiang was top of it. On the basis of all such allegations American Congress passed Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in September 2020to block supply chain of numerous products coming from Xinjiang in the name of human rights abuse. American Congress forced importers to cut ties with certain companies from Xinjiang.
This made the world analyst to raise numbers of questions that includes whether the strategy was successful is there any cut of supply really happening from Xinjiang or will such strategy would work? Is it benefitting the so called suppressed people of Xinjiang?
Following lines will tell you why it looks so far a failed strategy against China:
Firstly, China’s Criminal Law, Labor Law, Labor Contract Law, and Public Security Administrative Punishment Law says: forcing a person to work by means of violence, threat, or illegal limitation of personal freedom; or affronting, physically punishing, beating, illegally searching or detaining an employee are strictly forbidden and would lead to administrative punishment. These regulations are strictly observed in Xinjiang so when Law itself secures the people under the supervision of CPC government of China the allegation of forced labor would become baseless.
Secondly, the US political tool under the cover of Human Rights look harsh for the business society and they are unwilling to cut ties from the region especially those that are linked with cotton industry and polysilicon producers from Xinjiang. According to research in 2019, when solar ranked as the world’s top source of new power generating capacity, about one-third of the polysilicon the industry used to make solar panels came from Xinjiang. China as a whole accounts for about 80% of global capacity. With polysilicon-makers boosting production in Xinjiang it will become more important. Similarly Cotton industry provides 80% of the cotton in China, one of the world’s top producers of the fiber, as well as tomatoes and manufactured goods.
Thirdly, there is lack of evidences of forced labor from Xinjiang Volkswagen the company with its branch in Urumqi that produces 20,000 cars per year and have 600 employees of them 25 % are Uyghurs and Kazakh minority, company denied the use of forced labor in their factory in Xinjiang. In November 2020 an interview with the BBC in Beijing, the company’s CEO in China, Stephan Wollenstein, defended Volkswagen’s presence in Xinjiang’s capital and said that its presence in Urumqi is for economic reason only he further said that the company make sure of no forced labor in its production sites. Volkwagens claims that it has dominant position in Chinese market as it sells on fifth of all of its car production here therefore cannot become a hostage of CPC government and is free to speak about it. We can found thatit is the repetition of same allegations under new News titles in western media, with only one person as a source of information that is Adrian Zenz.
Fourthly, there is a resistance against the Congress legislation in business groups and major companies. According to New York Times article of November 2020 Nike that has shoe making factory in Qingdao in China’s Shandong province, Coca cola getting sugar from Xinjiang , they are calling Congress to alter legislation and to stop cracking down on imports of goods from Xinjiang China. Both companies said that their audit made clear that they have no forced labor involved in its supply chain. There is also resistance from other multinational companies including Apple whose supply chains touch the region, as well as of business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which called the act ineffective.
Fifthly, the allegation of hundreds of thousands of “forced labors” in Xinjiang is incomprehensible because of having abundance of labour and there is a need to create more jobs for the unemployed people as said by Li Xiaosi the Chinese Ambassador to Austria.
Hence, above discussion not only demonstrates the failure of American policy against Xinjiang but one can also conclude that the pressure to cut ties from the cotton industries of Xinjiang and asking major companies doing business in this biggest Chinese region to share their dealings of Xinjiang is basically for a political purpose to hurt China under the disguise of Human Rights protective measures.
