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Apple and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway have done business with the Chinese wind power giant linked to controversial government and labor programs in Xinjiang, where the U.S. and other countries say China is committing genocide of Muslim minorities.
Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, China’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, entered a facility hundreds of kilometers away at least once from interviews to receive “labor exports” from Xinjiang’s Hotan prefecture. A new study by the Tech Transparency Project has been found. Hotan officials travel according to an archive, through an effort to strengthen “organizational and disciplinary education” of workers, the Goldwind plant is “coordinating” labor exports. local government media report It was covered by the Tech Transparency Project.
They are closely linked to “job transfer” programs forced labor for the Muslim minority in Xinjiang. “Forced labor has become an integral part of the government’s efforts to re-educate Muslim minorities,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Research in Washington. he wrote in 2019, as part of his extensive research on the subject.
Goldwind, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines, has close ties to the ruling Communist Party, which is common in many successful Chinese companies. But his ties to Xinjiang are unusual. The CEO of the company has made explicit statements in favor of a government program that has placed Communist Party cadres in the homes of Muslim families in Xinjiang. In December, Goldwind signed an agreement with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a US paramilitary group set penalties last year for his links to human rights violations in the region.
It’s unclear whether the “labor export” discussions took place in 2016, but the plans “create an idea of whether the turbine company was involved in exploiting Uighurs at its base in Xinjing,” the Tech Transparency Project said in a report today. published.
In response to questions about this article, Goldwind said that “Information and allegations of the Technology Transparency Project are false in the category and have no basis,” added that Goldwind has never forced labor exports from any region of China and has not done any forced labor. using.
Goldwind said the wind turbines it supplies in North America and other regions are made and assembled on the east coast of China and not in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government is running a campaign surveillance, imprisonment, and forced labor Against millions of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, Uighurs, Kazakhs and others. The program has caused a great deal of censorship by UN officials and governments including the United States, the EU and Canada.
In 2016, Apple invest four wind projects with Beijing Tianrun New Energy Investment, a subsidiary of Goldwind, which has wind farms in China. Tianrun gave Apple a 30% stake in each project. None of the wind projects are in Xinjiang. Apple said the projects were completed in 2017, and Goldwind has not supplied them since.
The investment was part of Apple’s “commitment to reducing carbon emissions from manufacturing,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environmental, policy and social initiatives. he told China Daily at the time, Apple added that it would allow suppliers to send clean energy to China.
“Finding the presence of forced labor is part of all the assessments we do in every country where we do business,” Apple said in response to questions about this article. “We are closely monitoring this and over the last year, despite the reductions in COVID-19, we have conducted more research and found no evidence of forced labor in our supply chain.”
In October 2018, Berkshire Hathaway Energy provide funding to To develop Goldwind’s Chicago subsidiary $ 250 million wind farm McCulloch County, Texas, called the Rattlesnake Wind Project. The golden wind he sold the project, Said to be the largest in the U.S. in November 2020.
Berkshire Hathaway did not respond to requests for comment by the time it was published.
Goldwind’s link to Xinjiang raises more difficult questions for Western companies doing business with China’s fast-paced alternative energy sector. BuzzFeed News they reported in January that solar energy depends on the essential components used in solar panels made in Xinjiang.
Goldwind accounts for 21% of the country’s wind energy market. According to data from BloombergNEF. It has state shareholders, including the state-owned electric company China Three Gorges Corporation. The company’s net 2020 profit it grew by almost 35% Compared to $ 452.4 million a year.
US government has banned imports of tomatoes and cotton From Xinjiang, saying that the two industries are confused with forced labor. But Xinjiang’s largest export to the U.S. in 2020 was wind turbines, the South China Morning Post reported in December, Citing trade data from the Chinese government.
“The U.S. is a hot wind energy market, so all suppliers are trying to sell there,” said XHShou Zhouk, IHS Markit, a market research company that is leading the world in the practice of power and renewable energy.
Wu Gang, founder and president of Goldwind, visits southern Xinjiang – a region where Uyghurs make up the bulk of the population – at least six times a year for “poverty alleviation work,” which is living and eating with families in villages. government requirements, according to a 2018 message posted by Goldwind company account WeChat was discovered on the Chinese social media platform and the Tech Transparency Project. Travel is part of a controversial government program known as Chinese mud, The acronym for the slogan “Visit people, benefit people and gather people’s hearts”.
Wu’s participation in the program is described as part of Goldwind’s work to become a good “corporate citizen”. During those trips, Wu played football with local children and created “cultural stations,” the article said.
But mud the program facilitates state surveillance, according to a 2018 research Made by Human Rights Watch. During these visits, which can last several days, “family officials should be given information about their lives and political views and undergo political indoctrination,” Human Rights Watch found. The group called on the government to end the program immediately, adding that there is no power for families to deny such visits. The mud program it also enables the government is collecting data on ethnic minorities who help determine who the detainee is, Human Rights Watch has found.
Wu is a former member of the Chinese rubber stamp parliament, National People’s Congress, and is still at the Chinese People’s Political Advisory Conference, a largely legislative function with a ceremony.
The golden wind has signed the agreement in December with a split in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps – four months after the U.S. imposed sanctions on the organization – to give power to a small town called Beitun.
Goldwind’s strong market presence has won many Western business partners. The Las Lomas wind farm project in southern Texas, consisting of 48 wind turbines spread over more than 36,000 acres near the Mexican border. It is run by the French energy company Engie and sells energy to Microsoft. South China Morning Post investigation according to shipping records and other official data, Las Lomas had wind turbines from Xinjiang Goldwind. Wu told Engie is the main customer of the company’s Goldwind International subsidiary.
“As for the situation of the Uyghurs in China, Engie has decided to conduct specific checks on its suppliers,” the company said in response to questions from BuzzFeed News. The company is committed to ensuring that its work is not forced into its supply chain, he added.
The study of Apple’s work in China has been growing in recent months. Information they reported in May he and two human rights groups have found Apple linked to seven providers of forced labor-related programs. At least five of them “received thousands of Uyghurs and other minority workers at specific factory sites or subsidiaries that worked for Apple,” the publication reported, adding that an Apple supplier ran a factory near an alleged detention center in Xinjiang.
“We urge Apple CEO Tim Cook to be released from Chinese suppliers in Xinjiang who are involved in forced labor,” U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative James P. McGovern, who heads the Executive Committee of the Chinese Congress, told BuzzFeed News. “We also urge Apple to contact the Chinese Customs and Border Protection with Chinese supply chains to ensure that Apple does not import imports. We must provide a unified, tough and global response to the atrocities committed in Xinjiang.”
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