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US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law legislation that bans imports from China\u2019s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor, the White House said, provoking an angry Chinese condemnation.<\/p>\n
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is part of the US pushback against Beijing\u2019s treatment of the China\u2019s Uyghur Muslim minority, which Washington has labeled genocide.
\nThe bill passed Congress this month after lawmakers reached a compromise between House and Senate versions.<\/p>\n
Key to the legislation is a \u201crebuttable presumption\u201d that assumes all goods from Xinjiang, where Beijing has established detention camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim groups, are made with forced labor. It bars imports unless it can be proven otherwise. Some goods \u2013 such as cotton, tomatoes, and polysilicon used in solar-panel manufacturing \u2013 are designated \u201chigh priority\u201d for enforcement action.<\/p>\n
China denies abuses in Xinjiang, a major cotton producer that also supplies much of the world\u2019s materials for solar panels. Its Washington embassy said the act \u201cignores the truth and maliciously slanders the human rights situation in Xinjiang.\u201d \u201cThis is a severe violation of international law and norms of international relations, and a gross interference in China\u2019s internal affairs. China strongly condemns and firmly rejects it,\u201d embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement. He said China \u201cwould respond further in light of the development of the situation,\u201d but did not elaborate.<\/p>\n
Nury Turkel, Uyghur-American vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, told Reuters this month the bill\u2019s effectiveness would depend on the willingness of Biden\u2019s administration to ensure it is effective, especially when companies seek waivers.
\nU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Biden\u2019s approval of the law ?underscored? the \u201cUnited States\u2019 commitment to combatting forced labor, including in the context of the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.\u201d AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law legislation that bans imports from China\u2019s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor, the White House said, provoking an angry Chinese condemnation. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is part of the US pushback against Beijing\u2019s treatment of the China\u2019s Uyghur Muslim minority, which Washington has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":335053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53],"tags":[14916,50,14915,11815,10992],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335054,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335052\/revisions\/335054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/335053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}