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| BRUSSELS — The European Union said on Wednesday that it aimed to ban all goods that were the product of forced labor, a move that analysts predicted could hit exports from Xinjiang, the Chinese region where Beijing is believed to be forcing ethnic Uyghurs to work in camps. |
| The European proposal followed a U.S. policy that became law in December that explicitly singled out goods from Xinjiang. The E.U. plan did not mention Xinjiang, but China is widely seen as a target of the bill following increasing pressure within the bloc to address human rights violations by Beijing. |
| The U.S. law imposes a blanket ban on products from Xinjiang. By contrast, the European bill would apply to all goods circulating inside the bloc deemed to have been created with forced labor, without specifying particular countries or sectors, which analysts say reflects wariness over antagonizing Beijing and breaching World Trade Organization rules on trade. |
| Li Yong, an analyst with the China Association of International Trade, a government-funded research group in Beijing, told The Global Times, a Communist Party-owned daily, that the European proposal reflected “the deep-rooted racial discrimination and prejudice of the West.” |
| Valdis Dombrovskis, the E.U. trade chief, told reporters that the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, which drafted the proposal, was “very careful to make sure that what we are doing is compatible with the W.T.O. rules and obligations in our bilateral deals.” |
| “The key word for this was nondiscrimination,” he added. |
| The European rules, which are expected to become law next year and take another two years to be fully implemented, come at a critical time for victims of forced labor. Compounding crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and armed conflicts have led to a record increase in modern slavery, according to the United Nations. |
| Not counting commercial sexual exploitation, about 17 million people are currently victims of forced labor in the private sector, according to a U.N. report published this week, and some 3.9 million are forced to work by governments. Manufacturing, construction and agriculture are the sectors most affected. |
| European consumers, often unknowingly or indirectly, profit from such abuse. According to estimates by advocacy groups, one-fifth of cotton products in the global clothing industry are “tainted by forced labor” from Xinjiang, and almost half the worldwide supply of polysilicon, a key component of solar panels, comes from the region. |
| The European proposal would make the national authorities of the bloc’s 27 members responsible for enforcing the ban. But critics say that failing to identify the regions or industries that are the biggest culprits, as well as leaving individual nations to determine how to implement the policy, stood out as major weaknesses. |
| In the United States, the authorities are empowered to seize goods suspected of being the products of forced labor coming from Xinjiang. But in Europe, the authorities have to prove that the goods are in breach of the rules, and only then can they withdraw them from the market. The administrative and legal burden on the European authorities, which have varying capacities and political commitment to this cause, will most likely weaken the implementation, analysts said. |
| “A lot will depend on the political will of national governments,” said Niclas Poitiers, a trade researcher at Bruegel, a Brussels-based research institute. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a very different application in Germany than in Hungary,” he added. (Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has built a close relationship with Beijing, facilitating sprawling Chinese investment in his country.) |
| The proposed law follows significant pressure from civil society and European lawmakers to confront China about its human rights record. Last year, the European Parliament blocked a landmark commercial agreement between the bloc and China, citing rights violations and a “totalitarian threat” from Beijing. And in June, after the publication of the “Xinjiang Police Files,” which detailed years of repression against the Uyghurs, lawmakers adopted a resolution calling for an outright import ban. |
| The proposed law has been criticized for failing to mention China but also because it does not help victims of forced labor to claim back wages, retrieve their documents or seek compensation. |
| “Does it help the fate of the Uyghurs? I am afraid it falls short,” Reinhard Buetikofer, a German member of the European Parliament for the Greens, told reporters on Monday. “I am not happy that state-induced forced labor is not even mentioned in the text,” he added. |
| Europe’s relations with China, which is considered simultaneously a partner and a “systemic rival,” is in an awkward phase, given the Chinese government’s support of Russia even after the invasion of Ukraine. |
| And to many, Europe’s swift response to the Russian aggression highlighted the weakness of its policy toward China. |
| Referring to Xinjiang, Dilnur Reyhan, president of the European Uyghur Institute, said, “This genocide has been happening for five years and Europe has not yet done anything, just bread crumbs in terms of sanctions.” |
| She added: “But we’ve seen what has happened since the Russian war in Ukraine. We know that Europe can respond very quickly if it wants to.” |
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