US House passes forced labour bill that would bar Xinjiang imports
- The legislation, which now goes to the Senate, would require any importer of Xinjiang-sourced products to prove they were not made using forced labour
- The bill, called the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, was approved by a vote of 406-3
US lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would effectively ban imports from China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region because of suspected use of state-sponsored forced labour there.
Currently, the US bans the import of any goods if there is evidence that forced labour was involved in their production.
But the new legislation approved Tuesday would reverse that calculus for Xinjiang, meaning that importers could not source goods produced either wholly or in part in the region unless the US government could certify with “clear and convincing” evidence that they were not produced using forced labour.
Lawmakers approved the bill, called the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, by a vote of 406-3.
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The bill’s passage marks US lawmakers’ latest move to pressure Beijing over its policies in Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Uygurs and other ethnic minorities are believed to have been interned and subject to forced indoctrination.