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Washington:
The United States will block imports of cotton it says are harvested with “slave labor” in China’s Xinjiang area, authorities have introduced.
Beijing has come underneath intense worldwide criticism over its insurance policies within the resource-rich territory, the place rights teams say as many as a million Uighurs and different principally Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps.
The new rule permits Customs and Border Protection officers to detain shipments containing cotton originating from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a significant paramilitary group already sanctioned by the US Treasury.
“The human rights abuses taking place at the hands of the Chinese Communist government will not be tolerated by President Trump and the American people,” mentioned senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Ken Cuccinelli on Wednesday.
“DHS is taking the lead to enforce our laws to make sure human rights abusers, including US businesses, are not allowed to manipulate our system in order to profit from slave labor,” he added.
Beijing responded by accusing the United States of fabricating “fake news of so-called forced labor” and making an attempt to “oppress Xinjiang businesses.”
“Their aim is to constrain and oppress relevant parties and enterprises in China and curb China’s development,” mentioned overseas ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday.
She denied there was any pressured labor in Xinjiang, saying employees within the area “choose occupations based on their own wishes.”
Xinjiang is a worldwide hub for cotton, with one examine by a labor group estimating that 20 p.c of the clothes imported into the United States include not less than some yarn from the area.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mentioned in September that merchandise from Xinjiang pressured labour “often end up here in American stores and homes.”
Beijing has staunchly defended its coverage in Xinjiang, the place it says coaching packages, work schemes and higher training have helped stamp out extremism.
But Homeland Security officers have described the area’s coaching facilities as amenities run like a “concentration camp.”
The US House of Representatives voted almost unanimously in September to ban all imports from Xinjiang however the invoice has but to cross the Senate.
The nation already bans merchandise made by way of slavery however the proposed legislation would situation a blanket ban on merchandise from the area, saying that pressured labor is inextricably linked to its economic system.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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