The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list of companies whose products can no longer be exported to the United States, part of what it described as a growing crackdown on companies that aid forced labor programs in Xinjiang.
The companies include a seafood processor, Shandong Meijia Group, which an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project identified as a company that employs workers brought to eastern China from Xinjiang, a region in far western China where the government has detained and monitored a large number of minorities. , including the Uyghurs.
Another company, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, is an aluminum processor whose metal can be found in cars, consumer electronics and other products, a U.S. official said. The third, Dongguan Oasis Shoes, brought Uyghurs and people from other persecuted groups to its shoe factory in Guangdong, the US government said.
With these additions, 68 companies now appear on the so-called list of entities that, according to the United States government, participate in forced labor programs, almost double the number at the beginning of the year.
Robert Silvers, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and chairman of a committee that oversees the list, said the government was accelerating the pace of additions to the list and the public should expect that to continue.
“We are going to hold companies accountable if they engage in forced labor practices,” he said.
Industries using cotton and tomatoes were among the first to consider links in their supply chains to Xinjiang fields. But in more recent years, companies that make solar panels, flooring, cars, electronics, seafood and other products have discovered that they, too, use components made in Xinjiang.
The United States put into effect the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act two years ago to ban imports made in whole or in part from Xinjiang.
The Chinese government runs programs in the region to move local population groups to factories, fields and mines around Xinjiang and other parts of China. Authorities say these programs are aimed at alleviating poverty, but human rights experts say they are often coercive.
The two-year law also created the entity list, a list of companies that U.S. officials have linked to forced labor programs. The government initially did not add many companies to the list despite the reported scope of Xinjiang labor programs.
Silvers said the list “absolutely required a preparation period.”
“We had no procedures, no personnel, no traffic rules to do this job,” he said. He added that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act did not include new funding for the department. “That’s why we’ve gone deeper and pulled resources from other areas to move toward this priority area,” she said.
Last month, the department announced that 26 companies linked to the textile and clothing industry had been added to the list. It will announce new additions on a rolling basis as soon as it has evidence that a designation is warranted, Silvers said.
Last month, major automakers saw their products detained at US ports after it was discovered they were importing a part made by a company linked to forced labor in Xinjiang.