From the pasta aisles of Rome to the ketchup bottles and beauty products of American supermarkets, the bitter fruits of Uyghur forced labor have found their way into kitchens and cosmetic shelves around the world.
Contaminated harvests from Xinjiang may have found their way into your home.
The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwestern China is notorious for large-scale human rights abuses. concentration camp to Sterilization About Uighur women. new research Digging deeper into its role in global food production reveals new forms of control that use the industrialization of agriculture to dismantle traditional communities.
Our new findings reveal that the Chinese government not only engages in collective forced labor among Uighurs, but also engages in large-scale land grabbing of ethnic communities. Chinese food and cosmetics makers are raking in profits.
Xinjiang accounts for 15 percent of the world's tomato paste, 10 percent of all chili peppers, 65 percent of chili pigments used in cosmetics and food coloring, and a growing share of the popular zero-calorie sweetener stevia.
our new researchThe paper, published by an international network of sinologists, reveals how Xinjiang's growing agricultural sector was built by systematically separating farmers from their land and forcing them into industrial labor. The resulting system of forced agricultural industrialization has permeated global supply chains.
The Chinese government has criticized forced agricultural production, land grabs by Chinese companies, forced labor of farmers and camp detainees, and the aggressive efforts of large Chinese agribusinesses to enter Uyghur homes to enforce intrusive state policies. It controls and exploits Uyghur farmers through four main mechanisms: collusion. Guannong, a major producer of tomato paste, operates its own armed militia for this purpose.
The scale of this operation is staggering. From 2001 to 2021, the region saw a 50-fold jump in land transfers, or forced displacement of ethnic farmers by state-sponsored agribusiness. In some regions, authorities openly admit to transferring up to 90 percent of agricultural land from ethnic farmers in a single season. China's 2019 official yearbook on rural poverty and regional economic development states that land transfer reform needs to “combine coercion and inducement.”
After “liberating” farmers from their land rights, authorities direct them to work on industrial land run by state-run companies, according to government documents. This means that dispossessed Uyghur farmers are now relying on work for the companies that owned their land, or are otherwise toiling on the land they once owned. means.
The intertwining of global companies is deeper than many people realize. Our research found 72 international companies related to agricultural products in Xinjiang that maintain direct or indirect connections, including major brands such as Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Del Monte, PepsiCo, McCormick, Unilever, and L'Oréal. and 18 Chinese companies were identified. Three major Xinjiang-based companies (COFCO, Chalkis, and Chenguang Biotech) operate subsidiaries in the United States and Europe.
When faced with our findings, Western companies' responses reveal an alarming pattern. del monte Defended the continued supplier relationship with COFCO by citing social audit practices provided by the supplier. expert The government is unable to effectively assess state-imposed labor in China, where auditors are subject to intimidation and workers are not allowed to speak freely under national security laws. I can't.
Kraft Heinz has confirmed that it uses tomato products supplied by COFCO in China and Central Asia. However, our research revealed that in 2023 and 2024, subsidiaries in Egypt, India, Indonesia and New Zealand also purchased COFCO tomato paste. To make matters worse, Kraft Heinz maintains a strategic partnership with COFCO, and many Xinjiang tomatoes are grown from its seeds. This is a classic example of how Western know-how enables ongoing atrocities.
L'Oréal denied any direct relationship with the tainted suppliers, but did not comment on indirect supply chain relationships through Asian intermediaries that our investigation revealed.
China provides almost half of Italy's tomato paste imports via the Belt and Road transport route. Therefore, Italy is the world's largest exporter of processed tomato products and an important conduit for Xinjiang. imposed by the state Products made from forced labor enter the world market.
A Xinjiang-based producer set up a shell company with zero employees to “protect” foreign trade and shipped thousands of tons of tomato products to Italy. Testing of 17 tomato products sold in European supermarkets Origin of China revealed Even though the label claims Italian origin.
Behind these commercial agreements lies the use of agro-industrialization policies toend the domination” Uyghur population in their traditional homeland.
By evicting Uyghur farmers from their land and dismantling their traditional communities, the Chinese Communist Party has ensured that they arePopulation optimization” China's major producers of industrial inputs for food and cosmetics are directly complicit in these policies.
To meet this challenge, authorities need to step up enforcement of laws banning imports from the Uyghur region in line with the Chinese government's evolving tactics. U.S. and other global companies should no longer be able to hide behind inadequate audits. Full disclosure of supply chains for high-risk products should be required. Regulators need to increase scrutiny of intermediary countries that facilitate supply chain obfuscation.
Evidence shows that the Chinese government has adapted its regime of repression in Xinjiang by doubling down on state forced labor and expanding the dispossession of ethnic farmers. The question now is whether the international community will change its response to counter it.
Adrian Zenz is the Director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
