As of: February 14, 2024, 7:00 p.m
By: Lars-Eric Nievelstein
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The debate about forced labor in Xinjiang, China, never ends.
Now VW employees have given new information.
VW is said to have used forced labor to build a test track.
Berlin - First it was about a plant in Urumqi, China, then about aluminum, now forced labor is said to have been involved in the construction of a test track.
The German car manufacturer Volkswagen cannot escape allegations that it does not pay sufficient attention to human rights in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Now the car manufacturer is drawing conclusions.
Forced labor suspected on VW test track – employees provide information
The Handelsblatt
is
currently reporting on serious allegations.
New evidence currently suggests that Uighurs were involved as forced laborers in the construction of a test track in Xinjiang Province (western China).
The paper refers to the Xinjiang researcher Adrian Zenz.
He is said to have received tips from VW employees, after which he evaluated documents from the companies involved in the construction.
The Volkswagen factory in Zwickau.
VW is said to have used forced labor to build a test track in Xinjiang, China.
© IMAGO / Georg Ulrich Dostmann
In its China business, VW cooperates with various Chinese companies.
One of the reasons for this is that for a long time China only allowed foreign companies access to the market if a domestic player owned at least 50 percent of the joint venture.
On the test track, it was the vehicle manufacturer SAIC that VW cooperated with.
Zenz is said to have found evidence on the website of the construction company China Railway Fourth Bureau and in other sources that Uyghur forced laborers had helped build it.
Forced labor through “state conscription” – Beijing and Muslim minorities
“In addition, employees of the organizations that were involved in the construction of the test track actively participated in measures to control and suppress the Uyghurs,” Handelsblatt quoted
Zenz
, who is also a senior fellow at the Memorial Foundation for the Victims of Communism in Washington.
Zenz has been researching forced labor and internment camps in Xinjiang for several years.
To explain: The government in Beijing is moving Uighurs through a program it calls state conscription.
Classified as so-called “surplus workers,” mostly poor people from the countryside, the government forces them into seasonal forced labor.
The US Bureau of International Labor Affairs stated that it was predominantly Muslim minorities who ended up in selected work environments through the work program.
Beijing ensures that sufficient control and surveillance is possible.
VW is examining “various scenarios” after the allegations
Now the car manufacturer has joined the debate itself.
Currently, as the AFP
news agency reports
, Volkswagen representatives are in contact with the Chinese joint venture partner SAIC to review the “future direction of business activities”.
VW is examining various scenarios, said a company spokesman.
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Volkswagen had already been criticized several times because of the Xinjiang issue.
It wasn't until December that an audit was supposed to clarify whether forced labor was being used at the VW plant in Urumqi.
This is one of over 30 plants in China that VW operates together with Chinese business partners.
However, the Urumqi factory had already lost many of its original functions and was primarily used for acceptance, i.e. the final testing, of vehicles.
In the end, the audit showed that the factory did not use forced labor - whereupon an employee came forward and is said to have referred to the test track.
BASF withdraws from Xinjiang – will VW follow suit?
In recent days, VW has increasingly come into the public eye because the German chemical company BASF had just withdrawn from Xinjiang.
After reports of human rights violations in its activities in the region, BASF pulled the ripcord and announced the prospect of selling its shares in two joint venture companies there.
The VW test track is currently still in use.
It is primarily used for vehicle testing at extreme temperatures.
According to expert Zenz, workers from “poverty alleviation programs” were involved in the construction.
The government in Beijing had repeatedly rejected international accusations of repression and stated that the actions in the region were aimed at combating extremism.