Lawmakers from UK, EU and other countries call for blacklists over Uygur treatment in Xinjiang

Name: US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses
Uploaded: 2022-01-25T19:52:57.000Z
Duration: 1 min 42 s
Description: US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses

Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China members call for bans similar to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List

Lawmakers want to force investment firms to divest from companies with ties to forced labour and other abuses

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A worker gathers cotton yarn at a textile manufacturing plant in the Xinjiang region of China, where human rights abuses are suspected. Photo: AP

Chad Brayin London

Published: 3:52am, 26 Jan 2022Updated: 4:39am, 26 Jan 2022

A group of 35 lawmakers from the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries have called on their nations to create blacklists to block investors from funding companies associated with alleged human rights abuses against Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The group, which includes politicians from Australia, Canada and India, urged their governments to create blacklists similar to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List to force investment firms to divest from companies with ties to forced labour and other alleged abuses in the region.

“We cannot ignore the role that big banks play in financing the abuses taking place in Xinjiang,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, German Green member of the European Parliament and a co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). “If they are knowingly investing in firms perpetrating forced labour and other human rights abuses, then it is right that they should be held to account.”

The Entity List bars sanctioned companies from buying from American suppliers. It is one of several sanctions initiatives used by the US.

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US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses

In June, US President Joe Biden expanded a list of Chinese companies in which American citizens are barred from investing over alleged ties to the Chinese military or sales of surveillance technology used against religious minorities and dissidents, including in Xinjiang.

The letter-writing campaign, coordinated by IPAC, followed a Sunday Times report this month that HSBC was acting as a custodian for an investor in Xinjiang Tianye, a state-owned enterprise and a subsidiary of an entity facing US sanctions over Xinjiang. The shares were purchased through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme.

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