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US-China relations
China

US says companies doing business in Xinjiang may run ‘high risk of breaking the law’

  • Government advisory tells American firms operating in the Chinese region to brace for consequences if they stay because of suspected human rights abuses there
  • The warning cites forced labour, intrusive surveillance, and a continuing genocide and crimes against humanity in the western Chinese region

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Police officers patrol near the International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region on July 5. Photo: Kyodo
Jacob Fromerin WashingtonandRobert Delaney
The White House on Tuesday escalated its rhetoric against American companies doing business in Xinjiang, calling US investments a potential threat and warning American firms that they may wind up breaking the law if they don’t leave the region, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from Beijing.
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The new US advisory includes pages of details describing the legal and reputational risks for American firms operating in the far-western Chinese region, and warns them to brace for serious consequences if they stay there and continue with business as usual.

“Given the severity and extent of these abuses”, it said — citing forced labour, intrusive surveillance, and a continuing genocide and crimes against humanity against the region’s Uygur population — “businesses and individuals that do not exit supply chains, ventures and/or investments connected to Xinjiang could run a high risk of violating US law”.
But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denounced the US advisory, telling a daily press conference: “The US attempt to contain China with Xinjiang will fail. There will be no way out.”

Zhao said the US should reflect on its own human rights record, saying black people and immigrants have faced suppression in the US and adding that the US military has killed civilians in foreign nations.

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The US State Department – working with the departments of Commerce, Treasury, Labour, Homeland Security and the Office of the US Trade Representative – issued the new guidance “to highlight the heightened risks for businesses with supply chain and investment links to Xinjiang, given the entities complicit in forced labour and other human rights abuses there and throughout China”.

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