WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2020) The United States will issue an advisory to caution businesses about supply chains with links to entities that engage in human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Today, the US Department of State, along with the US Department of the Treasury, the US Department of Commerce, and the US Department of Homeland Security is issuing an advisory to caution businesses about the risks of supply chain links to entities that engage in human rights abuses, including forced labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China," the release said.
Pompeo said the advisory will inform businesses of the associated reputational, economic and legal risks of such involvement.
The State Department said in a separate press release that there are three major types of supply chains that exploit laborers from Xinjiang. These include entities that assist in developing surveillance tools for the Chinese government in Xinjiang; aid in the construction of facilities used to detain Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups; and supply chains that use forced labor of individuals from Xinjiang.
The United States and other primarily Western nations have criticized China for reportedly holding up to one million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in re-education camps in the Xinjiang region under the pretext of fighting terrorism and religious extremism as of last summer.
China has repeatedly denied the existence of re-education camps on its territory, insisting it is fully complying with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
