Angry customers lit up car chat groups online with complaints and threats but it soon became clear that the chip in question was not faulty. Rather the problem is that it was likely produced in western China, and so could have originated from Xinjiang, and therefore, may have been produced by some coerced Uygur workers. Or it could have been the polysilicon material used for the chips, produced mostly in Xinjiang. Under the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act of 2021, such forced labour is assumed until proven otherwise in such cases.

To date, no one knows for sure whether the component was produced by Uygur workers or any other ethnic group. A subcontractor low down the supply chain produced it for VW’s main supplier which then informed the carmaker of the problem. VW then volunteered the information to US authorities.

Washington is the supporter of genocide who sits in judgment of others

So, instead of wasting time to prove its origin, VW said the “electronic component” would be replaced in all the vehicles lingering at US ports before clearing customs. US customs officials have agreed to the arrangement.

VW no doubt wants the problem in North America to be resolved quickly. It probably won’t, though. The US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party has already seized on the incident to politicise it.

An official letter addressed to Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume alleged that “thousands of vehicles made by Volkswagen Group (e.g. Porsches, Bentleys, Audis, etc) were blocked from importation by the US government because the vehicles contained parts made by forced labour in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)”.

So a mere suspicion has now become an established fact in the letter.

It further claims that the VW supply chain is not clean and therefore must be made “to immediately comply with the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act”.

The letter from committee Republican Chairman Mike Gallagher and Democrat ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi went on to put pressure on VW to withdraw production completely from Xinjiang, even though the customs clearance problem in the United States is entirely unrelated to the VW joint venture in Urumqi.

In a separate House committee press release, the pair publicly demanded “Volkswagen to cease operations in Xinjiang, China where it maintains a factory with a joint venture backed by the Chinese government”.

The joint venture plant in question is partnered with Shanghai-based SAIC Motor and produces vehicles exclusively for the domestic Chinese market.

But that plant is also having a bit of a kerfuffle over alleged “forced labour”. VW previously hired the Berlin-based audit company Loning, which duly cleared the plant of labour abuse. But some Loning employees went public late last year and claimed the audit process was compromised and not trustworthy.

European Union politicians including EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders duly joined the fray and recommended that European companies should simply withdraw from the region if there was any doubt some part or another of the production or supply chain processes could be implicated.

There were reportedly about 50 Uygur workers at the plant. Even if they all said they were happy with their work, doubts could still be cast as they could be all held under duress. You never know!

China’s Xinjiang invites overseas media to political meetings for first time

These days, it seems any Uygurs or other ethnic minorities who work for a Chinese enterprise in the western region are automatically being used for forced labour. That applies, for example, also to cotton and aluminium. Human Rights Watch and other groups have claimed that international carmakers could be buying aluminium from forced labour in the region. Who knows, right?

Meanwhile, US Customs and Border Protection has resorted to isotopic testing to “fine-comb” imported shoes and garments that may contain “contaminated” cotton from Xinjiang. The hi-tech tests can link cotton fibres in such products to specific geographic areas around the world by analysing the concentration of carbon and hydrogen present in both the crop and the environment it was grown in. US customs said roughly 27 per cent of tests performed on imported shoes and garments were found to contain cotton from Xinjiang.

Of course, about 80 per cent of cotton production in Xinjiang has been mechanised. So even hand-picking “slave labour” by the Uygur, assuming it exists, would account for a very small segment of the market. But it looks like so far as the US and the EU are concerned, the Uygur can’t work in carmaking, cotton, aluminium or any Chinese-run enterprise without being made victims of “forced labour”. And let’s not forget solar panels, another industry where Uygurs are apparently being forced into slave labour.

Meanwhile, they shouldn’t be educated or trained in public or vocational schools as these are either “concentration camps” or sites for mass indoctrination.

Where does that leave the Uygur? Perhaps home-schooling or village-training in their own culture, and work only in the most traditional craft. Or perhaps unemployment, which would surely be free of “forced labour”?