China's unrest region has reached the Bundestag: the human rights committee hears experts on genocide, and an expert report warns German companies against supply relationships to Xinjiang.
Berlin / Munich - The situation in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang is increasingly dominating international policy towards China.
This week she is also busy with the Bundestag.
In a hearing before the Human Rights Committee on Monday (May 17), experts were supposed to say whether they would classify the human rights violations in Xinjiang as genocide.
The answer, in short, was no - for lack of legally sound evidence.
Also on Monday, an expert report by the Bundestag's scientific services became known, according to which the planned supply chain law could put German companies operating in Xinjiang into distress.
Companies could therefore be forced to discontinue their cooperation with local suppliers if they are suspected of using Uighur forced laborers.
According to serious reports by various researchers, up to a million members of Muslim minorities such as Uyghur and Kazakh people are said to have been interned in re-education camps in Xinjiang.
Some are said to have been forced to work in factories or in cotton fields.
Human Rights Committee: Lawyers assume crimes against humanity
First to the Human Rights Committee: some of the invited lawyers, political scientists, human rights activists and cultural scholars saw, despite their rejection of the genocide allegation, the well-founded suspicion that the alleged internment of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs was a crime against humanity.
It is an allegation that the Chair of the Human Rights Committee, Gyde Jensen, also joined. After the hearing, she spoke out in favor of an official condemnation of China by the Bundestag. One has to exchange views on this issue between the parliamentary groups, "in order to possibly also, as the German Bundestag, clearly identify the crimes of the Communist Party of China in Xinjiang for what they are," said the FDP politician to the German press agency. This would increase the pressure on the government to "stop these cruel and inhuman practices," said Jensen.
The parliaments of Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands have already officially labeled the situation in Xinjiang as genocide.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called the events genocide, but made this known as his personal opinion.
China firmly rejects the allegations and describes the camps as training centers.
Xinjiang: Difficult situation for German and European companies in China
For companies operating in China, the issue of forced labor is a particular problem. Companies and chambers of commerce have been expressing concerns about the situation in Xinjiang and the increasing politicization of business life since 2019. Clothing companies such as H&M, Nike and Adidas have recently been boycotted in China because they are no longer buying cotton from Xinjiang on charges of forced labor. The US sanctions against products from Xinjiang passed in 2020, and now the planned German supply chain law, make the situation even more difficult.
The law is scheduled to come into force in 2023.
Companies could therefore be forced to break off their cooperation with local suppliers if it can be proven that they were using Uighur forced laborers.
“An obligation of German companies to break off business relations with their Chinese suppliers” would then appear “almost inevitable”, according to the 128-page report available to the German Press Agency.
Xinjiang: Problems for companies in checking their supply chains for possible forced labor
But how are companies supposed to find out what's going on in their supply chains? "The problem with this is that at this point in time no independent external auditing company in China or abroad is willing or able to conduct a thorough, credible audit in Xinjiang," Jörg Wuttke, President of the European Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) told
Merkur .de
. This was still possible before the start of the corona pandemic.
The German supply chain law, however, will require "background checks at suppliers in Xinjiang" in order to be able to stay in business, says Wuttke. In addition, many companies have strict internal compliance rules that also prohibit the use of forced labor. He hopes that companies can meet the requirements stipulated by law and justify their activities in Xinjiang, says Wuttke. This is currently not guaranteed.
According to a 2020 US Congress list, forced labor can be found in a variety of other Xinjiang products besides cotton, including cell phones and other electronics, photovoltaics, wigs, shoes, finished textiles, tomatoes and garlic.
Some German companies, including Volkswagen, have their own factories in Xinjiang.
VW boss Herbert Diess defended the plant in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in the spring and emphasized that no forced laborers were used there.
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Orange: The settlement area of the Uighur minority in the north-west China's Xinjiang region
© dpa-infografik GmbH / dpa
Because of the sanctions conflict over Xinjiang, the EU's CAI investment agreement with China, which has been welcomed by European companies, is on hold. The European Parliament will position itself this week in a resolution on the sanctions imposed by Beijing against several of its MPs as well as European researchers and organizations. It is likely that the EU Parliament will declare the lifting of the sanctions by China a prerequisite for continuing to ratify the CAI agreement. The EU had sanctioned four Chinese officials and one paramilitary organization in connection with Xinjiang. Beijing promptly imposed far more drastic retaliatory sanctions.
(ck / dpa)
