Politico fears that almost all Chinese language photo voltaic panels comprise parts made by Uighur slaves – what is the level?
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h / t JoNova; European solar manufacturers have claimed that almost every solar panel bought from China originated in Xinjiang’s Chinese slave factories.
Fears of China’s Muslim forced labor loom over EU solar energy
The panels include components made in China’s Xinjiang region, where there are concerns about forced labor camps for Muslim minorities, including Uyghurs.
BY AITOR HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES, KARL MATHIESEN, STUART LAU AND GIORGIO LEALI
February 10, 2021, 7:23 p.m.
Almost every solar collector sold in the European Union has its origins in the suppressed Xinjiang region of China.
The solar industry and Brussels lawmakers argue that Europe’s push towards renewable energy should not come at human expense, given long-standing international concern over reports that China has arrested 1 million Muslims in camps in Xinjiang and puts them to work.
“Everyone knows what is going on in China, and if there are facilities there, you have to accept that there is a high probability that forced labor will be used,” said Milan Nitzschke, President of EU ProSun, an alliance of solar companies that advocate Use sustainable funding, solar production based in the EU.
While the US has already imposed sanctions on products like cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang, the European Commission has avoided confronting China with trade measures.
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“Virtually every silicon-based solar panel – at least 95 percent of the market – is likely to contain Xinjiang silicon,” said Jenny Chase, director of solar analysis at BloombergNEF.
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Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/xinjiang-china-polysilicon-solar-energy-europe/
Link to a February 2021 BBC interview with former Uighur inmates, including someone who claims to have been a former slave who discussed how she was raped and another former prisoner who was forced to strip women and girls and handcuffed so they could not resist being molested by other guards or molested by outsiders who bribed prison officials to enjoy their darkest perversions.
I believe the claims made in the BBC interview. Solar panels use a lot of coal in their manufacture to chemically remove oxygen from the silica, and Xinjiang has a lot of very cheap, high quality coal, perhaps because Xinjiang’s Chinese coal chiefs don’t have to pay their workers.
What about wind power? Do not think for a moment that wind power is necessarily devoid of this flaw. Most of the world’s rare earth elements, which are critical to high-efficiency power generation in wind turbines, are produced at a facility in Inner Mongolia during an environmental disaster. Though less well known than the camps in Xinjiang, China is believed to have slave jobs in Inner Mongolia where resettled Uighur Muslims work alongside inner-Mongolian political dissidents. I doubt that free Chinese would want to tackle the most noxious steps in this process when expendable slaves are available. I doubt the slaves, who I suspect will handle the horribly toxic chemicals required to refine rare earths for wind turbines, will be offered much expensive personal protective equipment.
We are obviously not going to convince Joe Biden to interrupt his renewable energy push, but by conscience anyone can agree that not a single solar panel or wind turbine should be sourced from alleged Chinese slave laborers, but only one component of tainted Chinese sources – the given the supposed widespread proliferation of slaves in the Chinese economy cover pretty much all Chinese exports as far as I can see.
Every penny that goes to the alleged slave masters in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia could pay for this barbarism and help maintain it.
Correction (EW): The person who claims she was forced to strip other women and prepare them for abuse was a prisoner, not a guard – check out the BBC website for more details.
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