British MPs demand strict law after reports of forced labor of Uighurs in Chinese tomato supply chain exposed

Britain’s parliament is considering possible action against Beijing after an investigation report revealed that many tomato purees labeled “Italian” in British supermarkets are often produced using forced labor from Uighur workers in China Radio Free Asia are done.

RFA cited a media agency report that revealed that 17 products, mainly store-brand items from British and German retailers, were possibly made from Chinese tomatoes. Some of these products, such as Tesco’s Italian Tomato Puree, add “Italian” to their name, while others include it in their product descriptions.

Sarah Champion, a Labor MP and member of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition on China, said during a House of Commons session on Monday that the investigation had “rightly shocked the British public.”

They said tomato products sold in UK supermarkets that were labeled Made in Italy or Made in Italy were linked to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Tadashi Yanai, president and CEO of Japan’s Fast Retailing, Uniqlo’s parent company, said his/her company does not source cotton from Xinjiang.

Companies around the world are facing greater scrutiny to verify that their supply chains do not include products made with Uyghur forced labor. In response to the report, China immediately condemned it, claiming, “It essentially equates Xinjiang with ‘forced labour’, which is a clear attempt to tarnish China’s image,” according to a report in the state-run Global Times. In the editorial.

“The BBC’s latest ‘fabrication’ is unconvincing,” the editorial continued, adding, “In Xinjiang, both cotton and tomatoes are harvested using mostly mechanized methods, from planting to picking. “Replaces manual labour.”

Unlike the United States, where there are laws banning imports from Xinjiang based on the perception that they are produced with forced labor, UK companies are allowed to self-regulate and ensure that such labor is produced in their Not included in the supply chain.

Champion criticized the UK’s “weak and confusing product labeling regulation”, arguing that it allows “linguistic manipulation” possibly intended to mislead consumers.

Addressing Douglas Alexander, Britain’s minister for trade policy and economic security, he/she asked, “How much more evidence is needed to show that we need stronger labeling to provide consumers with clear information about the sourcing countries of pre-packed products?” Are standards needed?” he/she stressed that in the Uyghur region, serious human rights violations are occurring daily due to the state-enforced forced labor system, with an estimated 700,000 people being forced to work in tomato production.

Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition on China, argued that the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act, which aims to address modern slavery in supply chains, needs reform.

“Currently, we are importing huge quantities of polysilicon arrays from Xinjiang, and nothing is being done about it,” he/she said. he/she added, “This issue goes beyond Xinjiang; There too, 1.25 lakh Tibetans are made victims of forced labour.”

According to media reports, it interviewed 14 individuals who experienced or witnessed forced labor in Xinjiang’s tomato farms over the past 16 years. One person reported that workers who failed to meet their daily tomato quota for export were given electric shocks. The news outlet also examined shipping data, which showed that most Xinjiang tomatoes are transported by train through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia before reaching Italy.

In June, human rights lawyers representing Uyghur advocacy groups filed both domestic and international complaints, claiming that several containers of tomato paste shipped by rail from Xinjiang to Italy two months earlier were produced with Uyghur forced labor. Were.

Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington and an expert on Xinjiang, said Xinjiang Guanlong, a company involved in forced labor, set up a shell company to export its products to Italy and other countries under a different name. . Destination.

Zenz cited legislation passed by the European Parliament in April that bans the import and distribution of goods made with forced labour. However, the law must still be approved by the EU’s 27 member states, who will have three years to implement it.

“The worry is that with the EU set to implement this forced labor regulation in three years, the UK could become an even bigger destination for these types of tomatoes,” he/she said.

Oona Burcu, an expert on China foreign policy at the University of Nottingham, said it should not be surprising that tomato paste from China, and possibly Xinjiang, has reached UK supermarket shelves.

Italy, one of the world’s largest exporters of tomato paste, imports significant quantities of it, mainly from China and the US. The country then repackages, relabels the product and exports it to other European countries and beyond.

Although the EU has considered introducing mandatory origin labeling for tomato products, the proposal has not yet been implemented. Burcu explained that a country can label a product as “made” or “packaged” in a place such as Italy, even if no local product is used, with Italy merely acting as a processing or manufacturing center. Is.

Sophie Richardson, a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy, argued that it is not surprising that Chinese tomato puree is sold globally, even in countries with strict laws on forced labor. .

he/she also pointed out that this is due to weak enforcement mechanisms, with companies claiming that they oppose forced labor but failing to take the necessary steps to ensure that their supply chains are free from such practices.