China put in place sanctions on U.S. firm Kharon on Tuesday due to its work ensuring companies are compliant with U.S. restrictions related to the use of forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, according to Bloomberg.
China froze any assets held in the country by Kharon, Edmund Xu, director of investigations at Kharon and Nicole Margret, an analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, and barred Chinese firms from working with the company and the individuals, according to Bloomberg. Xinjiang, China, is thought to be the center of a repressive campaign against Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party, entailing reeducation camps, forced labor and involuntary sterilizations, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. (RELATED: Biden Admin Says Multi-Billion Dollar Foreign Purchase Of U.S. Steel Deserves ‘Serious Scrutiny’)
“On December 26 the Government of China sanctioned Kharon and one of its senior researchers for our work related to forced labor and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,” Kharon said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In service of our clients and all global businesses that seek to implement leading risk management programs, Kharon will continue to provide research and data analytics that is objective, independent, and based on reliable sources.”
One of the services Kharon offers is to prevent companies from unknowingly including forced labor and human rights abuses in their product supply chains in accordance with U.S. law, particularly from the Xinjiang region of China, according to the company.
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The fresh sanctions follow restrictions placed on two Chinese officials by the U.S. earlier this month, claiming the individuals were connected to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to Bloomberg. The U.S. previously passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which barred goods made in whole or in part in Xinjiang from being imported.
Some U.S. firms have found it difficult to avoid products made in the region, with a report from May finding that 27% of tests run on shoes and clothing administered by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol had links to cotton produced by slave labor in China. Between 2020 and 2021, 23% of the world’s cotton was produced in Xinjiang, accounting for 87% of the country’s domestic production.
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