Australia joins US, UK in warning companies over ties with Xinjiang

Bloomberg

Australia joined allies including the US and the UK in raising concern about the use of products from China’s Xinjiang region in global supply chains.
Local companies that source goods from the area need to properly check supply chain and suppliers, Foreign Minister Marise Payne was quoted as telling the Australian Financial Review in an interview.
Governments are seeking to raise pressure on China over the treatment of its ethnic Uighur Muslim minority. The US says China has detained more than one million Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in “re-education” camps. Beijing has repeatedly rejected the claims, arguing that it is fighting separatism and religious
extremism in the region.
The UK this month said it would fine firms if they cover up imports from Xinjiang, while the US this week moved to bar entry of all cotton products and tomatoes from the region, citing concerns over forced labour.
Australia shares the serious concerns of international partners, such as the UK, about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, “including in relation to forced labour and arbitrary detention,” the newspaper quoted Payne as saying . Australian companies sourcing products from Xinjiang need to “undertake due diligence into their supply chains and suppliers,” the minister said in the report.
Relations between Canberra and China, its key trading partner, have deteriorated since 2018, when Huawei Technologies Co. was barred from building a 5G network in Australia, and worsened last year after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government called for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.
China last year ordered traders to stop purchasing a raft of Australian commodities, including coal, barley, sugar, timber and lobster.