Last December, U.S. President Joe Biden stood up to China's communist regime by enacting legislation banning imports from China's Xinjiang region because of the use of forced labor by the Uighur Muslim minority.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Law assumes that all goods from Xinjiang, where Beijing has established detention camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim groups, are made with forced labor and therefore bans imports unless it can be proven otherwise.
On December 21st, 2021, the President announced "Today, I signed the bipartisan Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that supply chains are free from the use of forced labor, including from Xinjiang and other parts of China”.
The White House move, enacted amid growing tension, including calls by activists for a boycott of February's Winter Olympics in Beijing, has drawn angry condemnation from China, which rejects allegations of abuses in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government said that this U.S. law is a violation of international law and dismissed allegations of abuses against mostly Muslim minorities in the northwestern region as lies.
The move "maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China's Xinjiang without regard to facts and truth," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian. "It gravely violates international law and the basic norms governing international relations and seriously interferes in China's internal affairs," Zhao said. "China deplores and firmly rejects this."
The bill passed Congress this month after lawmakers reached a compromise between the House and Senate versions. For Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Ranking Member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) this measure is "the most important and impactful action taken so far by the United States to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for the use of slave labor."
"It will fundamentally change our relationship with Beijing. This law should also ensure that Americans no longer unknowingly purchase goods made by slaves in China. I look forward to working with the Biden Administration and my colleagues to ensure that the new law is properly implemented and enforced," the Republican added.
Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern, also a sponsor of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, said the legislation prevents "the exploitation of the Uyghur people and takes a clear stand against the genocide and crimes against humanity occurring in Xinjiang, China."
The U.S. Customs Border and Protection (CBP) Agency has also released crucial guidelines to properly implement the Labor Act, which will go into effect on June 21st, 2022.
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