Our New Original Sin - Chinese Forced Labor

Right now, in some way, you are probably enjoying the benefits of forced labor, some would say slave labor.

It is evil, yet you and I are complicit. It is also, in my opinion, a great factor in the current culture of lying and deceit in our news and media. If you can’t be honest about the great lie, eventually will be tainted by lies.

Now, is all Chinese labor slave labor or forced labor? No, but the surveillance powers of the Chinese Government make it really hard to know what is and what isn't. But ask yourself, if people weren’t exploited, how could they afford to make products in China, ship them overseas, and still be much cheaper than if we made those products in our backyard? Factory workers here mostly make living wages, but they aren’t rich. What is happening to Chinese workers?

In March 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published a report "Uyghurs for Sale": ‘Re-education’, forced labor and surveillance beyond Xinjiang, which identified 83 foreign and Chinese companies as allegedly directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through potentially abusive labor transfer programs.“

ASPI estimates at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories in a range of supply chains including electronics, textiles, and automotives under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid’. The report identified 27 factories in nine Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labor transferred from Xinjiang since 2017.

Here are some of the brands that the report found benefited from Chinese slave labor: Abercrombie & Fitch, Acer, Adidas, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BMW, Bombardier, Bosch, Calvin Klein, Candy, Carter’s, Cerruti 1881, Cisco, Dell, Electrolux, Fila, Gap, General Electric, General Motors, Google, Hisense, Hitachi, HP, Jaguar, L.L.Bean, Lacoste, Land Rover, Lenovo, LG, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Nike, Nintendo, Nokia, The North Face, Panasonic, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, Sony, Tommy Hilfiger, Toshiba, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Volkswagen, ZTE.

It’s going to be hard to live in truth if we keep participating in the sin of slave labor, that by the way, makes China and its communist ways more and more powerful and influential in our society.