German companies in Xinjiang: forced labor? – “No hints here”

Do Uyghurs in Xinjiang do forced labor for German companies, as UN experts accuse China of? The BASF branch does not want to know anything about it when they visit. At Volkswagen, the research ends at the company gate.

Foreign reporters are noticeably undesirable in the Chinese part of Xinjiang: constant police checks, questioning, eternal discussions. Journalists who travel there are repeatedly stopped and followed; from cars with darkened windows or from employees of the state security authorities in civilian clothes.

This seemingly hostile environment changes suddenly in state institutions – or in German companies that work with a state-owned company in Xinjiang, such as the chemical company BASF. Stijn Brughmans, who heads BASF’s Chemical Intermediates division in the Asia-Pacific region, welcomes visitors to a meeting room at the plant in the city of Korla. The Ludwigshafen-based Dax Group has been producing intermediate products there since 2016, together with the mostly state-owned joint venture partner Markor Chemical, as Brughmans spoke to ARD studio Shanghai and explained to the “Handelsblatt”.

International human rights groups criticize BASF for the plant on the edge of the Taklamakan desert: Because the environment in which the world’s largest chemical company operates there is extremely worrying. According to research by the “Australian Strategic Policy Institute”, there are several internment camps run by the Chinese authorities just a few kilometers east of the BASF site. BASF is aware of the “general media coverage of this region,” says Brughmans. “At the same time, we also take note of the information from the Chinese government authorities on the subject. We also follow the discussions that are taking place in the United Nations Human Rights Committee, for example.”

“Vocational Training Centers” for Uyghurs?

According to human rights groups, international think tanks and experts from the United Nations, China’s state and party leadership is detaining hundreds of thousands of people in the camps in Xinjiang, mainly Uyghurs and members of other religious and ethnic minorities. Leaked government documents and numerous eyewitness reports confirm this. International researchers and human rights groups point out that forced laborers for industry and agriculture in Xinjiang are also being recruited from these camps.

The Chinese government authorities reject this. After initially denying the existence of the camps, they now euphemistically refer to them as vocational training centers. The camps are justified with the fight against extremism. “I only know of one Vocational Training Center around here, I am currently not aware of any other things,” says Brughmans from BASF.

The website of the “Australian Strategic Policy Institute” shows satellite images that clearly show several camps in the east of the city of Korla: in the middle of the steppe, with walls and watchtowers around them. An earth wall, a railway line and high bushes separate the warehouse area from the industrial area in Korla. On the apparently only dirt road that leads to the camps, the journey ends after a few hundred meters at a police car. Two policemen get out, indicate a construction site and ask to turn around.

Companies do not make audits transparent

On the BASF site, which is only a few minutes away by car, Manager Brughmans walks past countless gray pipes, steaming pumps and huge tanks in which the chemicals are stored. This plant could also be located in Ludwigshafen, says the Belgian – the entire system is controlled remotely from the control room.

Around 120 people work at BASF in Korla – most of them are highly qualified personnel, as Brughmans emphasizes. That alone rules out forced labor of any kind: “Here at the site there have not yet been any indications of any violations of human rights or violations of human rights. I can say that very clearly, because first of all we don’t experience it in everyday work – we have that under control ourselves. And secondly, we have already been audited several times. ”

International human rights organizations have been calling for companies in Xinjiang to be audited – that is, checking the standards under which they work there. The China director of “Human Rights Watch”, Sophie Richardson says: She recognizes that BASF is trying to achieve transparency in Xinjiang. However, she criticizes, among other things, the fact that the company does not want to say by whom the plant in Korla was audited – and adds: “The guidelines formulated by the United Nations require that companies make the results of such audits public.” The decisive factor is that companies in Xinjiang are not only responsible for what happens on their own factory premises, but also for the situation at the Chinese joint venture partner and with the suppliers. BASF manager Brughmans says: “We have our code of conduct, we have our supplier code and we also address such topics.”

VW isolates itself from reporters in Xinjiang

Another major German corporation, Volkswagen, is active in Xinjiang. Not far from the airport in the provincial capital Urumqi, VW is building the Tharu and Santana models. Journalists are not allowed to visit the plant. Security guards politely ask to leave the premises, even if you are not on the actual premises.

As a reason for the fact that the plant cannot be visited, VW puts forward the Chinese joint venture partner SAIC-Volkswagen: The manager responsible cannot travel to China at the moment. Also written questions from the ARD Studios Shanghai and VW does not want to answer the “Handelsblatt” at the moment.

The Wolfsburg-based company is generally reluctant to comment on its plant in Xinjiang. Most recently, Volkswagen’s China boss Stephan Wöllenstein said at the auto show in Shanghai in mid-April: “We cannot deal with a subject like forced labor because we employ all of our employees directly.”

Human Rights Watch’s Sophie Richardson is unconvincing. The company still has to answer many questions about Volkswagen’s suppliers in Xinjiang. They are not surprised that Volkswagen does not let journalists into the plant. “Volkswagen apparently wants people to simply believe the statements made by management that everything is in order at the Urumqi plant and that all due diligence is observed,” she says. “The evidence for this is still pending.”

Experts such as the historian James Millward of Georgetown University in Washington, who specializes in Xinjiang, say: Ultimately, it is impossible to do business in the Chinese part of the country without being connected in one way or another to the system of mass internment and prison camps be. Because all the authorities there are complicit – and foreign companies could not be active in Xinjiang without cooperating with precisely these state authorities.