WASHINGTON, June 24 (KUNA) -- The US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added Thursday five Chinese entities to the Entity List "for accepting or utilizing forced labor in the implementation of China's campaign of repression against Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)." The Commerce Department said this action "targets these entities' ability to access commodities, software, and technology subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and is part of a US Government-wide effort to take strong action against China's ongoing campaign of repression against Muslim minority groups in the XUAR.
"As we made clear during this month's G7 summit, the United States is committed to employing all of its tools, including export controls, to ensure that global supply chains are free from the use of forced labor and technology is not misused to abuse human rights," said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
She added "the Commerce Department will continue to take firm, decisive action to hold China and other perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable." Separately, the White House said that the US believes that "state-sponsored forced labor in Xinjiang is both an affront to human dignity and an example of the PRC's unfair economic practices.
"The PRC's use of forced labor in Xinjiang is an integral part of its systematic abuses against the Uyghur population and other ethnic and religious minority groups, and addressing these abuses will remain a high priority for the Biden-Harris administration," it stressed.
It continued that the US "will not tolerate forced labor in our supply chains and will continue to stand up for our values and for US workers and businesses.
"The Biden-Harris administration is taking additional steps to hold those who engage in forced labor accountable and ensure that we continue to remove goods made with forced labor from our supply chains through actions by the Department of Homeland Security's US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor," it noted.
For its part, the CBP has issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., Ltd., a company located in Xinjiang, and its subsidiaries. This WRO is "based on information reasonably indicating that Hoshine used forced labor to manufacture silica-based products." Furthermore, the Department of Labor has published a Federal Register Notice updating its "List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor," to include polysilicon produced with forced labor in China. (end) si.hb