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- A new report has found “enormous and expanding” links between major car companies and China’s Xinjiang region.
- The Chinese government has been accused of committing human rights abuses in the region.
- Similar accusations have been made in the past against Apple, Amazon, and Nike.
If you bought a car recently, some of its parts may have been made through forced labor in China.
That was the main finding of a six-month investigation conducted by researchers from Britain’s Sheffield Hallam University. In a new report, researchers said their analysis of publicly available documents revealed “substantial and expanding links” between major car companies and China’s Xinjiang region, where the evidence of human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government against Uyghur Muslims, including forced labor, government surveillance, forced sterilization, and re-education camps. Some called it “genocide.”
The 78-page report says “every major car brand” — including the likes of Ford, GM, Tesla, and Toyota — is at “high risk” of acquiring parts from companies associated with the abuse of human rights.
“There was not a single part of the car that we researched that was not tainted by forced Uyghur labor,” the team’s lead researcher Laura Murphy told The New York Times. “It’s an industry-wide problem.”
A year ago, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law, banning US imports of products made in whole or in part in the Xinjiang region, unless the company can prove they do not use forced labor . Since taking effect in June, customs officials say they have stopped 2,200 shipments — valued at more than $728 million — from entering the US.
Car companies contacted by The Times “did not dispute the report,” but said they were committed to ensuring their supply chains were free of human rights abuses. Insider has reached out to Ford, GM, Tesla, and Toyota for comment.
In a statement, GM said, “We actively monitor our global supply chain and conduct extensive due diligence, particularly where we identify or become aware of potential violations of the law, our agreements, or our policies ,” added that its supplier code of conduct clearly prohibits any forced labor or abusive treatment of workers.
Ford, Tesla, and Toyota did not respond by the time of publication.
“It’s not impossible to audit one’s supply chain to identify risks”
Auto industry supply chains are “closer to a ball of spaghetti than a linear chain,” Simon Croom, professor of supply chain management at the University of San Diego, told Insider. A typical automaker may have links to as many as 18,000 suppliers, including their direct suppliers, those suppliers’ suppliers, and so on.
The Sheffield Hallam report lists around 200 companies in China and around the world with potential links to Xinjiang, where steel, copper, aluminium, batteries and other components are produced.
Croom, who previously worked for Jaguar and wrote his PhD dissertation on auto supply chains, said he believes many supply chains – both in the car industry and elsewhere – have connections to forced labor in the region. .
“I have no doubt that many supply chains have forced and slave labor/sweatshop in their upstream tiers,” he says, “and it’s very clear that the auto industry is one such example.”
Per Croom, while many companies say they lack a full view of their supply chains, “it’s not impossible to audit one’s supply chain to identify risks.”
“There’s no reason why auto manufacturers or other OEM companies can’t verify their supply lines,” he said, “and I strongly believe that lack of transparency is a thing of the past and so OEMs simply ignore abusive suppliers.”
Susan Golicic, however, a professor of supply chain at Colorado State University who previously worked at Chrysler, said that while she was not particularly familiar with the report’s claims, it can be a challenge for companies to fully understand their extensive supply chain.
“When suppliers are beyond the third tier, it’s often difficult for OEMs to track what they’re doing, as well as who and where they are,” he told Insider. “Some suppliers may be too small and may lack the technology to easily communicate or provide transparency at the front end of the supply chain.”
In response to supply chain challenges during the pandemic, many companies have taken steps to “onshore,” “friendshore,” or “nearshore” — portions of their supply chains, moving them back to the US, to politically allied countries, or geographically closer countries.
But while these changes may give companies more transparency into their supply chains, many are likely to maintain global exposure for decades to come.
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