A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson boasted of strength in the solar production industry and doubled down on the dismissal of concerns despite the documentation of Uyghur forced labor.
When Zhao Lijian was asked June 8 about Uyghur forced labor in the Xinjiang region, specifically relating to the solar panel components that are produced en masse in the region, he dismissed allegations of forced labor as the “lie of the century,” according to a People's Republic of China Ministry of Foreign Affairs news release.
“China is the world’s largest photovoltaic manufacturer and has more installed capacity than anyone else,” Zhao said, according to the release. “Xinjiang is the world’s most important production base of polysilicon, an essential material of the PV industry.”
He accused the United States, currently estimated to be 85% reliant on Chinese solar products, of fabricating lies to increase their competitive edge, the release said.
The Commerce Department is currently investigating solar imports from Asian nations after a complaint alleged the Chinese were funneling imports through Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia to dodge U.S. tariffs first implemented under former President Barack Obama, Commerce Newswire reported.
In the meantime, the U.S. is facilitating U.S. solar deployers’ ability to obtain solar modules and cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Those components can be imported for 24 months free of certain duties to ensure the U.S. has access to enough solar modules to meet electricity generation needs as domestic manufacturing scales up, the White House said in a release.
Sheffield Hallam University, a public research organization located in the United Kingdom, published research linking the suppressed Uyghur population to the global solar panel supply, according to a university release. According to the report, Uyghurs forced into labor in China are responsible for 45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon, on which 95% of solar modules rely.
The SHU report said every polysilicon producer in the Uyghur region has reported participation in the “labour transfer programmes and/or are supplied by raw materials companies that have,” the release said. The labor transfers outlined in the report are involuntary and accomplished through “unprecedented coercion.” The research identified 90 Chinese and international companies whose supply chains are intertwined and thus would be impacted by the realization that the Chinese products are created using forced labor.
Zhao's dismissal of the Uyghur abuse comes shortly after the Xinjiang Police Files were released, which verify the global concerns about Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang and show significant government involvement in the process, a Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation website said.
