US Customs and Border Protection need to pay close attention to cotton products imported from Vietnam. The reason is that these products allegedly help China evade US sanctions under the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The Vietnam Democratic Union released this statement on March 27.
According to an organization that brings together a number of overseas Vietnamese groups and associations, there are six manufacturers from Vietnam out of more than fifty international intermediaries that have purchased unfinished products made from cotton grown in Xinjiang from China’s top five manufacturers.
The Democratic Alliance notes that some international brands supplied by such Vietnamese intermediaries have a high risk of using Xinjiang cotton for their products.
The Democratic Union cites data from the United Nations agency UN Comtrade stating that more than half of China’s exports of semi-finished products made from cotton are shipped to Asian countries where Vietnam is the second-largest importer. Analysis of the shipping data also shows that after arriving in Vietnam, international intermediate manufacturers complete those products for export around the world. Such products often contain ingredients from suspected Chinese partners. That way leads to the result of helping China “wash Xinjiang cotton”- to avoid sanctions that are set by the US and other countries to punish China’s human rights violations in the region.
Under the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, finished or semi-finished products from China’s Xinjiang Region produced by forced labor are prohibited from being imported into the United States.
Translated by Thoibao.de from RFA: https://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/news/vietnamnews/vietnam-allegedly-laundering-xinjiang-cotton-04042022083643.html
