What to Do About Xinjiang

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Last month, the Trump administration announced a limited set of new restrictions on imports from Xinjiang. The move came in response to a rising chorus of Congressional voices calling for the U.S. to act against the forced reeducation and labor regime in the Muslim-majority region in China. Yet the new restrictions have limited reach. Even in an election year where President Trump sees clear political gain in bashing China, he has left untouched his most potent weapons to punish human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

While the Trump administration has slowly but steadily increased pressure, it failed to accelerate coercive policy to a level that would really cause Xi to second guess his policy. In fact, Xi recently doubled down, again publicly endorsing the current Xinjiang strategy, and policy targeting non-Han Chinese is growing stricter in Tibet and Mongolia. A more aggressive U.S. approach is needed in order to generate the sort of economic reaction required to have any hope of influencing Chinese policymaking.

What’s a sensible goal for U.S. action? A realistic intermediate aim of anti-forced labor policy toward China would be to scare corporations into investing the resources to monitor their supply chains and eat higher production costs to ensure their suppliers’ workers are free. Right now the companies that take the plunge and cut off relationships with their sketchiest suppliers risk losing market share to bad actors who can keep their costs low, particularly if reputational risk is limited. Increased law enforcement activity and broader public awareness are the two keys to drive a change in the incentive structure.

What tools are at the U.S. government’s disposal? Broadly, Congress could empower Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to step up their enforcement on imports of products with forced labor. The executive branch could also bolster sanctions regimes and campaign diplomatically to highlight China’s misdeeds and present a united global front against Xinjiang camps.

Other moves, such as accepting more Uighur asylum seekers, funding refugee camps and organizing an international boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic games have merit but fall out of this article’s scope. Broadly, such actions would serve to alleviate Uighur suffering and increase awareness.

Given that Xi believes that Uighur radicalization is a grave threat to social stability, he is unlikely to reverse course anytime soon. However, the steps outlined below would help ensure that American firms and consumers are not complicit in one of the worst human rights abuses of the 21st century and have the chance to embarrass Xi into easing off.

Bolstering CBP’s Authority

One underappreciated vehicle to push back on forced labor in Xinjiang is plain old Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) enforcement on exports from Xinjiang. CBP, charged with screening imports at all points of entry, is America’s last line of defense in preventing illegal goods from entering America.

The executive branch should direct CBP to issue a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on major exports from Xinjiang like cotton and tomatoes and aggressively pursue civil penalties against importers caught in violation. Thanks to a 2016 law which closed a loophole, WROs have gained new relevance as a policy tool, allowing the CPB to require designated importers or products from particular regions to prove that their goods are not produced with forced labor.

Most WROs have targeted individual companies or factories, save a 2018 blanket ban on Turkmen cotton (which proved to be a moderate success in impacting policy). For instance, new WRO listings this September went after hair products from Xinjiang’s Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park and cotton processed by Xinjiang Junggar Cotton and Linen Co. The CBP optimistically estimates that these enforcement orders could impact up to $200 million in goods, as of now both the government and many Western firms lack transparency into their supply chains to ensure these companies’ goods don’t make it into the United States..

Given that Xinjiang produces 80% of China’s cotton, and the U.S. now imports more than 30% of its apparel from China, enforcing an even larger WRO would far exceed the current capabilities of the CPB. To credibly back such a WRO, the administration would need help from Congress. The Customs and Border Protection’s forced labor division, charged with enforcing WROs, is working with a $2 million annual budget out of theBecome a supporter of IT Security News and help us remove the ads.