The lopsided 428-to-1 vote reflected increasing bipartisan ire at China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where officials have waged a campaign of repression against Uyghurs, the Muslim ethnic minority group, detaining as many as one million in internment camps and prisons. But the legislation’s fate is uncertain in the Senate, where similar efforts have stalled amid a fierce lobbying effort by businesses that have argued that the bill’s requirements are too onerous and would disrupt global supply chains.
The measure would impose high standards for companies seeking to import products from the region, barring imports of goods made “in whole or in part” in Xinjiang unless companies could proactively prove to customs officials that the products were not made with forced labor.
The Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, has declared that it considers China’s wide-scale repression of Uyghurs in its northwestern Xinjiang region a genocide, and accused the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity.
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