Chinese customs data reviewed by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Tuesday showed exports from the Xinjiang region to the United States nearly tripled year-on-year in September 2022, despite tougher scrutiny for forced labor imposed by the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).
The UFLPA, which was passed in December 2021 and went into effect in June 2022, effectively assumes all products from Xinjiang are tainted with slavery from the oppressed Uyghur Muslims and challenges importers to prove otherwise.
The Chinese government, which denounces all accounts of its abuse of the Uyghurs as “vicious lies” no matter how well-documented they are, was infuriated by the UFLPA and predicted it would cause massive disruptions to supply chains for goods such as cotton and solar panels. Textile companies in particular said it would be difficult to prove cotton sourced to Xinjiang was not tainted by slave labor.
That script began flipping in September, as Chinese state media boasted of record exports from the Uyghur region despite the UFLPA, while Republican lawmakers demanded to know what methods U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) was using to screen imports from Xinjiang. Congress was especially concerned about high-demand minerals with notoriously opaque supply chains.
