Advertisement
Xinjiang
WorldUnited States & Canada

Politico | Joe Biden weighs ban on solar material from China’s Xinjiang region over forced labour

  • About half the world’s supply of polysilicon comes from Xinjiang, where China has been accused on human rights abuses
  • The ban would assuage pressure to crack down on human rights abuses but could undermine the White House’s climate change goals

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
65
A man walks through solar panels at a solar power plant under construction in Aksu, Xinjiang. File: Reuters
POLITICO

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kelsey Tamborrino and Gavin Bade on politico.com on June 21, 2021.

Advertisement
The Biden administration is considering banning imports into America of a critical solar panel material from China’s Xinjiang region, according to four people familiar with the administration’s plans – a move that would assuage bipartisan pressure to crack down on human rights abuses but could undermine the White House’s aggressive climate change goals.
At issue is polysilicon, the material inside most solar panels, which US President Joe Biden hopes will help replace fossil fuels and allow the US to eliminate carbon emissions from power generation by 2035.
Currently about half the world’s supply of polysilicon comes from Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has been accused of rounding up hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uygur Muslims in what the State Department has labelled a “genocide”.

“The kind of brutality that we’re talking about is offensive to just about anybody who would ever see these sorts of practices being used,” said Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat and one of the lawmakers pushing Biden to act. “And they're doing it to the economic benefit of companies that are putting American companies at risk.”

06:33

G7, Nato rhetoric mark ‘seismic shift’ between China and the West

G7, Nato rhetoric mark ‘seismic shift’ between China and the West
For months, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed Biden to impose import restrictions on polysilicon similar to ones the Trump administration placed on cotton, tomatoes and other products exported from Xinjiang.
Advertisement
Advertisement