The U.S. bans imports of some Chinese solar panel materials tied to forced labor.
The White House on Thursday announced a series of steps to crack down on forced labor in the supply chain for solar panels in China, including a ban on importing products from a silicon producer in the Xinjiang region.
A significant portion of the world’s polysilicon, which is used to make solar panels, comes from Xinjiang, where the United States has accused China of committing genocide through its repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.
In one of the newly announced actions, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has banned imports of silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Company as well as goods made using those products.
The Commerce Department also added Hoshine Silicon Industry (Shanshan) Company and four other Chinese entities to a trade blacklist, a move that restricts American companies from exporting products and technology to them. The other entities are Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Company, Xinjiang East Hope Nonferrous Metals Company, Xinjiang GCL New Energy Material Technology Company and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Those entities, the department said, “have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other members of Muslim minority groups” in Xinjiang.
