Pushing U.S.-China relations to the brink, the Senate passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act [UFLPA] today, banning all goods from the area where U.S. intel says China has engaged in a genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of Western China. Many multinational corporations, especially sports shoe companies like Nike Inc., manufacture products with slave labor in Xinjiang province. UFLPA creates a “rebuttable presumption” that goods made in the region are from banned labor camps, specially banned under the 1930 Tariff Act. President Joe Biden made relations difficult with China when he hosted a get-to-know-you summit March 18 in Anchorage, Alaska. Hosted by 58-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken and 44-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, both blasted China for genocide against the Muslim Uyghur population in Xinjiang.
Beijing was outraged by the U.S. accusations of genocide, slamming the U.S. for “systemic racism” against African Americans. China told Blinken and Sullivan that no country that commits “systemic racism” on its black citizens has a right to criticize others for human rights abuses. So when the Senate voted today to ban Chinese good from Xinjiang, it’s bound to create a more hostile environment that’s bound to affect all aspects of U.S.-China relations. Pushed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the UFLPA is bound to be seen as an act of war by China, far worse that the trade wars that went on under former President Donald Trump. “We will not turn a blind eye to the CCP’s ongoing crimes against humanity, and we will not allow corporations a free pass to profit from those horrific abuses,” Rubio said in a statement, pushing U.S.-Chinese relations to the breaking point.
China’s already under the gun denying the origin of the deadly novel coronavirus that looks more and more like it was made in a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory, working on what’s called “gain-of-function” research. Gain-of-function research takes harmless bat-coronaviruses and engineers them into the most deadly pathogens known to man. Rubio and Merkley should take one issue at a time, not hit China now with another set of accusations about using Uyghurs as slave labor. Chinese uses its entire population as slave labor, so singling out Muslim Uyghurs makes headlines but doesn’t admit since President Richard Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger opened up China in 1972, it’s always been about slave labor to U.S. companies. How hypocritical now to raise concerns about slave labor markets in China when that’s what been happening for the last 50 years.
Rubio should focus his outrage on what’s happening 90 miles from Key West, Fl. Cuba’s communist authorities are cracking down on pro-democracy demonstrators protesting food-and-medicine shortages in the late Fidel Castro’s island communist prison. Dealing to Muslim Uyghurs seems so remote to a Cuban exile like Rubio whose family fled the brutality of the Castro regime, now run by President Miguel Diaz-Canel. With Cubans disappearing like the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Rubio should focus not on China but what he can do to save Cuba. “No American corporation should profit from these abuses. No American consumers should be inadvertently purchasing products from slave labor,” Rubio said, showing that kind of colossal hypocrisy that drives Beijing crazy. China always appealed to U.S. and European companies because of slave labor markets.
When you consider what’s happening 90 miles from the U.S., what’s Rubio and Merkely doing trying to make U.S.-Chinese relations go from bad to worse. Cuba needs more of Rubio and Merkley’s attention, especially the brutal crackdown verified by press reports of Havana protesters disappearing. Nothing could be more hypocritical than watching the U.S. complain about slave labor in China when that was exactly the point to companies like Apple Inc., the world’s richest company, making iPhones for a few bucks while they sell for nearly a $1,000. How does that jibe with Rubio picking on Beijing for Muslim Uyghurs, all because it’s fashionable in the press? Most press would have the U.S. get into WW III with Russia and China over the most petty grievances, like arguing over what constitutes genocide. Beijing rejects the U.S. genocide label against Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
Rubio and Merkley’s bill should move to the House for ratification, then to President Joe Biden for his signature. But Biden needs to think twice about another BDS [Boycott, Divestment Sanctions] movement this time against China. BDS tried to pressure Israel into more concessions with Palestinians but wound up backfiring with Israel developing strong trade relations with many Arab countries. If the House passes Rubio and Merkely’s bill and Biden signs it, what’a that going to do to U.S.-Chinese relation? It’s one step closer to a military confrontation in the South China Sea, Hong Kong or Taiwan, where WW III looms large. U.S. lawmakers should pick their battles wisely, not concoct useless bills to slap China in the face. Since Nixon and Kissinger opened up China in 1972, all foreign companies capitalized on China’s slave labor markets to maximize multinational profits.
