West’s false ‘forced labor’ narrative now being used to force German businesses out

Workers make down-filled coats at a factory in Jiashi county, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. (WANG ZHUANGFEI / CHINA DAILY)

The presence of a Volkswagen manufacturing site in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has been for many years the bane of China hawks.

They have long aspired to try and get the firm to withdraw as part of a strategy of undermining Germany’s trade and investment ties with Beijing, although repeated surveys and studies had found there was no evidence of so-called forced labor in the plant.

In recent weeks, the mainstream Western media, using their usual spokesperson, anti-Communist fundamentalist, Adrian Zenz, came out one after another, along with US parties, in an apparently coordinated campaign that effectively tarnished the German automobile manufacturer.

Zenz (who works for the US government-funded Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC) is not a credible scholar. He is instead an individual whose work gains mainstream credence when there is a specific agenda, particularly from the US, to push and manufacture consent for a policy goal regarding China’s Xinjiang region on sanctions or blacklisting. 

READ MORE: Xinjiang lauded for its efforts on opening-up

To this end, Zenz’s work usually relies on insinuations and ideologically driven assumptions that portray state poverty alleviation work programs as “forced labor” efforts, which is part of his pedigree of being an extreme anti-Communist. These views are never taken into consideration when his work is being reported.

In doing so, successive US administrations have deliberately cultivated Zenz’s work, first coordinating it through the Department of State under the Trump administration and giving it extensive coverage, not only to damage China’s image but to manufacture consent for several strategically motivated and protectionist policies.

These policies included: Banning Chinese cotton to serve US agriculture interests; Banning Chinese solar panels to serve the US’s aspirations to gain in the renewable energy industry; Eventually banning all products from Xinjiang under a “guilty as assumed” basis; and, effectively utilizing exaggerated allegations of “forced labor” to push supply chain shifts again to undermine China.

In calling it all a coordinated grander scheme, there is no exaggeration here — Zenz’s media profile comes and goes as the policy agenda sees fit. Thus, beginning several weeks ago, Zenz’s work has been rolled out again to push a coordinated campaign to discredit Volkswagen and its operations in Xinjiang. 

How did this happen? First, his report is published and then spread by the anti-China organization IPAC. Second it is then given maximalist mainstream media coverage that reports the allegations without skepticism or scrutiny. Third, the US government then coordinated on their side by immediately seizing a score of Volkswagen shipments saying it had parts made by “Uyghur forced labor”. Fourth, the subsequent outrage has seen domestic political coverage in Germany and investment funds withdraw from it. 

It is worth mentioning that the current German government is now more hawkish than the preceding maverick Merkel premiership. It has also been pushing to facilitate business shifts away from China against the will of German industry groups. 

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The main point however is that you can see how this “controversy” is coordinated across the media in a theatrical-like fashion to generate a narrative that forces through the inevitable conclusion. Volkswagen was suddenly targeted from multiple directions. There was a clear, overarching political effort behind it all.

The recent Western reports seldom refer to auditing results Reuters reported in December. In a Dec 5 audit statement by German human rights due diligence firm Loening Human Rights & Responsible Business GmbH, Loening founder and chief executive Markus Loening said his firm had found no signs of “forced labor” at SAIC Volkswagen (Xinjiang) Automotive Co Ltd, the joint venture of Volkswagen with SAIC Motor in Xinjiang. 

What has happened here is that there was a concerted campaign to politically undermine Volkswagen’s investments in Xinjiang by smearing them with “forced labor” allegations and delivering them a “game’s up” verdict.

However, the overarching strategic goal is to get Germany out of China, and Berlin as it happens, has economically gutted itself on behalf of US national interests.

But, if there is one thing that must be noted, it is that the “Xinjiang card” has never really been about human rights but an opportunistic, exaggerated, and political campaign that comes and goes as a weapon to attack China on the issue of supply chains, and to justify decoupling and even product bans that are in fact motivated by protectionism. 

The author is a British political and international relations analyst. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.