Xinjiang: will the West’s sanctions on China force the issue or unravel?
- US, EU, Britain and Canada sanctioned officials for alleged human rights abuses in the region, after previous bans targeting its cotton and tomato products
- As brands and governments argue over claims of forced labour in Xinjiang, producer of a fifth of the world’s cotton, observers debate sanctions’ possible impact
As international pressure on Beijing increases, it remains to be seen whether blacklisting firms and banning imports of Chinese products connected to Xinjiang will have a substantial economic impact. Some observers see the sanctions as merely symbolic objections to growing claims of repression in the region, which are unlikely to be heeded by Beijing.
According to Nick Marro, global trade lead at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Hong Kong, the sanctions would probably not have a discernible macroeconomic impact on China because they were “quite targeted” and carried “more symbolic than economic weight”. The real economic impact also depended on how stringently they would be enforced, he said.
“In effect, these companies had little choice but to disavow the use of Xinjiang cotton in their supply chains,” Marro said. “And that doesn’t even touch on the potential ethical and reputational risks that Western firms might face among their home market consumers.”
Multiple international media, think tanks and non-governmental organisations have published photographs, documents and analysis showing claimed forced labour in Xinjiang. In December, an analysis of Chinese government documents by the Washington-based Centre for Global Policy found that in 2018 “at least 570,000” people had been forcibly mobilised to pick cotton there.
During a visit to Xinjiang that coincided with the introduction of the latest sanctions, Minister for Public Security Zhao Kezhi, the country’s police chief, said Beijing would oppose “attempts to use Xinjiang to contain China” and “attempts to use terrorism to contain China” – lines used in Chinese state media to refer to the sanctions.
Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, who was the EU’s ambassador to China until 2019, said the bloc had a responsibility to respond. Its sanctions on four individuals and one entity accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang were the bloc’s first against China since the bloody Tiananmen crackdown of 1989.
“I do not think anybody in Europe was under the illusion that this would change China’s position immediately,” he said. “But the EU could not fail to make its position clear without losing its credibility.”
Although unable to quantify the amount of tomato products imported from Xinjiang specifically, US Customs and Border Protection said in January that US$10 million worth of tomato products had been imported from China into the United States in the previous year. About a quarter of the world’s supply of tomato ketchup is sourced from Xinjiang, according to Chinese state media reports.
Xinjiang’s cotton industry is more significant, producing a fifth of the world’s cotton and more than 80 per cent of China’s domestic cotton output.
Mei Xinyu, an economist and researcher at the Chinese commerce ministry, declined to say how China’s cotton production supply chain would shift if companies abandoned Xinjiang, but insisted China was too strong to be affected.
“The price of cotton will depend on supply and demand of the entire market,” Mei said. “Even if there are price fluctuations, we are still very resilient. Last year, even with increasing pressure from the US [previous sanctions over Xinjiang], and the pandemic, there was still growth in Xinjiang cotton exports.
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“All we have to do is keep up the good quality of Xinjiang cotton production. I believe a lot of companies will still want to use Xinjiang cotton. Businesses are very smart; they will find ways to solve this problem,” Mei said, without specifying how. “The ones who suffer will be US companies and consumers.”
In recent months, multinational brands have been scrambling to unwind their supply chains from the region. Every year, US companies import about 1.5 billion garments that contain Xinjiang cotton, worth more than US$20 billion, according to Washington-based labour rights organisation Workers Rights Consortium.
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Chen Daoyin, a political commentator and former professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said he saw little possibility of China changing its approach towards Xinjiang regardless of cost, given the issue has escalated to become an important part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s nationalism campaign.
“Relations between China and the world have fundamentally changed, and the Chinese government appears not to take Western democracies’ standards into consideration when it makes moves,” Chen said.
“As long as the Communist Party keeps pushing the narrative of achieving the ‘Chinese dream’ … foreign sanctions will have no impact on China’s internal policies.”
Achieving what it calls “social stability” in Xinjiang, a region riddled for years by ethnic conflicts and violence, has become central to the party’s ruling legitimacy as China grows in stature on the world stage and its leaders try to present an alternative to Western ideals.
Activists and political figures argue there is scope to increase the pressure on China to make meaningful changes to its policies.
“China can no longer hide,” she said. “The international community has been aware now of all the atrocities they’re committing, and I think we’re going to move towards even more concrete action in the coming months.
“I think [Beijing is] now focused on combating that narrative with its own propaganda and misinformation. In the eyes of the international community, [China has] become a country that doesn’t accept any sort of legitimate criticism. Retaliatory attacks have proven our point and made it easier to advocate for Uygur human rights, because we don’t really have to prove how China will behave … the world already knows.”
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Although there was room for further sanctions to be placed on China – such as on more agricultural products, on imports and even financial sanctions – François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at think tank Institut Montaigne in Paris, doubted the West was ready to do so.
“Naming and shaming might impose a reputational cost – I think it already does – on China’s actions in Xinjiang, but [pressuring China is] a long, drawn-out process,” he said. “It’s very clear that the Chinese leadership is extremely determined not to give in to any form of material or moral pressure.”
“It is likely to be delayed, and is also linked to China’s commitment to ratify two International Labour Organization conventions on forced labour. This will now come under increased scrutiny,” he said.