US legislation targeting China and products from Xinjiang clears key congressional committee

The Eagle Act calls for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Olympics, strengthening US ties with Taiwan
Also includes the House version of the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act

US-China relations

Jacob Fromerin Washington

Published: 3:13am, 16 Jul 2021

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A key US House committee approved a sweeping bill targeting Beijing on a range of fronts on Thursday, moving Congress closer than ever to banning all goods from China’s Xinjiang region from entering the US.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on the Eagle Act, omnibus-style legislation that in addition to calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Olympics, strengthening US ties with Taiwan, and cracking down on researchers in the US affiliated with the Chinese military, also includes the House version of the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act.

The US Senate unanimously passed its version of the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act on Wednesday night. The bill would change US policy to presume that any goods coming from Xinjiang are tainted by forced labour, and therefore banned from entry into the US unless American importers can prove otherwise.

Experts say that proving so would essentially be impossible in the opaque Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where the US accuses Beijing of committing genocide against Uygurs and other Muslim minority groups, and subjecting many of them to forced labour through various government programmes that rights groups say are masked as poverty alleviation work.

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The Chinese government denies all allegations of human rights abuses in the region.

The new movement on the forced labour bill also comes just two days after the Biden administration issued a warning to US businesses that they run the risk of breaking the law if they do not cut ties with Xinjiang.

The Senate version of the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act was authored by Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat. The House version was attached by lawmakers to the much larger Eagle Act.

The Eagle Act is the most recent example of broad legislation targeting China to wind its way through Congress, and is the latest sign that policymakers in Washington view the Chinese government under Xi Jinping as a threat to global stability and US power.

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But unlike the other China bills that have received overwhelmingly bipartisan votes of support in recent weeks – a rarity in the extremely polarised US Congress – the Eagle Act cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a party-line vote.

Republicans on the committee opposed the legislation in its current state, which will next head to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

“While some of what’s in this bill is very good, we get to a point where we just have to agree to disagree,” said Representative Michael McCaul from Texas, the top Republican on the committee, during a two-day committee debate on the bill that took place on June 30 and July 1, before lawmakers went home for the US Independence Day holiday.

Security guards stand at the gates of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Huocheng county in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China on September 3, 2018. Photo: Reuters

McCaul had offered his own alternate version of the bill, which he said was based on bipartisan Senate legislation that passed overwhelmingly in early June.

Republicans had fired off a series of complaints about the Eagle Act, many of them revolving around the bill’s inclusion of policies and funding related to climate change, which is a polarising issue in Congress.

“It’s one part rhetoric, one part strategic reports, and one part, a large part ‘Green New Deal’,” said Ohio Representative Steve Chabot, the top Republican on the Asia subcommittee, referring to a climate change bill that is reviled by many on the right.

Both parties also accused each other of not negotiating on the bill in good faith. The committee debated dozens of amendments, most of them from Republicans.

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One amendment, introduced by Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, would appoint a special US envoy focused on Xinjiang, similar to those appointed by US administrations previously for North Korea and Sudan. The committee approved the amendment and it was attached to the bill.

Throughout the two-day meeting, Democrats on the committee pushed back against Republican criticism that the bill was weak, highlighting its bipartisan language to bolster US support for Taiwan and other provisions to open America’s doors to Uygurs and Hongkongers fleeing the Communist Party.

“This is the most far-reaching bill to protect the Uygurs ever to come out of the United States Congress,” said committee chairman Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat and author of the Eagle Act.

“I’m quite surprised to hear that our bill doesn’t have teeth, when they have many of the same measures in their bill,” he added.

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China policy has emerged in recent years as one of the few areas of unity between the two parties amid intense polarisation on Capitol Hill. The House already passed two bipartisan bills last month to fund science and technology research, with the goal of competing against China.

It is unclear if the partisanship on display in the foreign affairs committee will ultimately stop the bill from passing the full House, where Democrats hold a narrow nine-seat majority and have little room for error.

Despite the party-line vote, lawmakers from both parties have still repeatedly emphasised that they agree with each other on the underlying focus of the bill: the threat from China. Lawmakers will still be able to update the bill with more amendments before a final vote by the full House.

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If the Eagle Act does pass the full House of Representatives, lawmakers from the House and Senate will then have to come together to resolve any lingering differences between the two chambers’ bills before a final compromise bill is voted on and sent to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

What that final China bill might look like, what is left in and what is removed may not be known until this process is finished, especially if there are wide gaps between the House and Senate versions of the bills. The Senate’s version passed overwhelmingly last month 68-32, as part of an even broader omnibus bill focused on China.

There are also slight differences remaining between the House and Senate versions of the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, including a difference of opinion on how long it should take for the ban on Xinjiang imports to take effect. The Senate bill gives a window of 300 days, while the House bill gives 120.