Chinese forced labor

On Chinese forced labor, Europe plays catch-up with the US

An EU ban on imported goods made using forced labor would be weaker than existing U.S. legislation — and risks turning the bloc into a “dumping ground,” campaigners warn.

BY ANTONIA ZIMMERMANN

The European Union is inching toward its first major law cracking down on goods made with forced labor — but its softer approach compared to Washington risks rendering its measures largely ineffective.

Five years after the United States first called on the EU to properly address documented human rights abuses in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, Europe is at last finalizing its response, with negotiators scrambling to clinch a final version of a bloc-wide ban on forced labor goods on Monday.

“We need to show political and legislative will now and finish this file before the end of the [legislative] term. At least 28 million victims of forced labor cannot wait any longer,” Dutch lawmaker Samira Rafaela told POLITICO. Rafaela, of the liberal Renew group, jointly leads work on the file in the European Parliament. 

The new rules — proposed by the European Commission in September 2022 — would empower customs authorities in EU countries to take products off the market if they are found to have been made using forced labor. Largely targeting China, they respond to a growing body of evidence that Beijing is using forced labor and mass internment camps to control the Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang. 

Up to 1.5 million Uyghurs are believed to have been interned in Xinjiang, where a paramilitary unit — which researchers have referred to as a colonial agency — oversees economic output as well as law and order. A report published this month by researcher Adrian Zenz showed that the region continues to subject Uyghurs to forced labor two years after a damning U.N. report detailed the abusive practice. 

Clamping down on goods made with forced labor, notably from Xinjiang, is intertwined with the bloc’s environmental and human rights priorities. The region in northwestern China is a top supplier of solar panels crucial to the transition toward green energy, and one in five cotton garments around the globe are estimated to contain fibers from there.

The EU meanwhile lags behind the U.S., which has imposed a general ban on the import of forced labor goods and has set rules that target Uyghur forced labor in particular. 

“The EU is already becoming a dumping ground for forced labor-tainted products,” warned Yalkun Uluyol, a member of a forced labor research group at Sheffield Hallam University. 

“Companies are making claims about compliance [with U.S. law for goods] that are going to the U.S. market, but they are not making similar commitments or statements for the goods that are going elsewhere, globally, including the EU,” he added. 

Yet Brussels’ planned ban — set to be significantly weaker than what Washington has in place — risks only yielding limited success in preventing that from happening. 

The law is on even shakier ground after another piece of EU legislation viewed as key to fighting forced labor — which would require companies to police their supply chains for human rights abuses and environmental harms — was all but killed by member countries this week. 

Learning from Washington? 

While the United Kingdom and Canada have been quick to align themselves with the tough U.S. position on trade with Xinjiang, Brussels and most EU member countries haven taken their time to follow suit, instead prioritizing a comprehensive investment agreement with China, for which negotiations concluded in 2020. The investment pact has yet to enter force.

That also applies to targeting forced labor. 

In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden took a decisive step by signing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which, since June 2022, has banned all imports from Xinjiang unless importers can prove that goods produced wholly or partly in the region are not made with forced labor. 

On top of that, the U.S. already had rules in place to combat forced labor under its Tariff Act, which dates back to 1930, and prohibits imports of goods “mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country” by convict labor, forced labor or indentured labor under penal sanctions. These rules were rarely used — until 2015, when Congress removed a clause allowing forced labor imports if comparable products aren’t produced domestically in sufficient quantities.

As a result, the U.S. has banned imports of cotton, cotton products and tomatoes from Xinjiang. It's also barred electronics, manufacturing materials, textiles and pharmaceuticals. 

Playing softball

In contrast, the EU’s ban would not explicitly target Xinjiang — which could also be linked to its aim to ensure its legislation complies with World Trade Organization rules by not discriminating against a particular country.

It is still unclear whether it will contain some sort of provision asking companies to prove that forced labor wasn’t used in regions where such abuse is viewed as likely — something European lawmakers are pushing for. 

The EU executive, they argue, should create a list of "high-risk" regions and economic sectors more likely to use forced labor. For goods produced in these areas, the authorities would no longer have to prove forced labor to ban a product, with the burden of proof instead falling on companies. Negotiators are currently discussing a weakened version of that option. 

Should Parliament get its way, the EU’s ban could somewhat emulate the U.S. model, said Ben Vanpeperstraete from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), an NGO. But whether Xinjiang is targeted would depend on the Commission and would be “a very political declaration,” he argued. 

What’s more, the threshold of evidence for launching investigations into potential forced labor and for deciding to levy sanctions in the EU’s proposed ban is much higher than in the U.S., as highlighted by a recent report by ECCHR and Anti-Slavery International, another NGO. 

Under the EU’s proposal, authorities should initiate a forced labor investigation if they identify that there is sufficient evidence that forced labor was used. In the U.S., a suspicion of forced labor suffices.

“The EU legislation will be much less impactful than the U.S.’s because it has a much lower capacity to extend its decision to situations where forced labor is not fully documented and fully demonstrated,” said Hélène de Rengerve, senior EU adviser at Anti-Slavery International. 

Brussels, she said, is asking for proof “that there is a violation of the prohibition of forced labor” — something that is “extremely difficult to do.”