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China Government Power

US Bans Import of Solar Panels From Chinese Company Accused of Forced Labor (msn.com) 190

Posted by EditorDavid from the sunshine-laws dept.
The Washington Post reports that this week the U.S. government "banned the import of solar panels and other goods made with materials produced by a Chinese company that it accused of using forced laborers from China's Xinjiang region, a move likely to complicate the U.S. push toward clean energy." U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a withhold release order Thursday barring silicon-based products from the company, Hoshine Silicon, which operates from plants in Xinjiang that have been connected to coercive state labor programs targeting Uyghurs and other minorities, as The Post reported on Thursday.

The order could have widespread impact on the solar industry, which is dominated by Chinese suppliers that source materials from Hoshine, the world's largest producer of metallurgical-grade silicon, a key raw material in solar panels. "Almost the complete solar industry is affected by Hoshine," said Johannes Bernreuter, a research analyst in Germany who studies the solar supply chain... By banning only Hoshine imports, CBP stopped short of targeting Xinjiang producers of another key solar ingredient, polysilicon. Those producers have also been connected to coercive labor programs targeting Uyghurs. In a note to investors, Height Securities described the ban "as a substantive but measured first shot across the bow" by the Biden administration, "which needs solar industry support" as it tries to balance rooting out forced labor in U.S. supply chains and an environmental agenda...

[I]ndustry experts said enforcement could be a challenge given the complexity of the solar supply chain and Hoshine's dominance in the industry. Hoshine has produced metallurgical-grade silicon for at least eight of the world's largest polysilicon makers, according to the company's public statements and annual reports. Analysts say that together these firms account for nearly all of the world's supply of solar-grade polysilicon. The move could also undermine U.S. hopes of cooperating with China on climate change, one of few areas of potential collaboration between the two countries increasingly at loggerheads over human rights and investigating the origin of the covid-19 pandemic... Industry experts say it would be safer for U.S. agents to assume all silicon products entering the United States from China contain at least some material sourced from Hoshine, whose metallurgical-grade silicon is used in a wide range of consumer products, including electronics, cars, chemicals and sealants...

The import ban was the most prominent of several measures the Biden administration took Thursday against China's solar-product suppliers. The Commerce Department also added several Chinese polysilicon producers to an export black list, which bars U.S. entities from exporting technology or other goods to the firms without first obtaining a government license.
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US Bans Import of Solar Panels From Chinese Company Accused of Forced Labor More

US Bans Import of Solar Panels From Chinese Company Accused of Forced Labor

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  • Why Limit it to Solar Panels and China? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Sunday June 27, 2021 @08:03AM (#61525988)

    Slave labor produced products should be banned for import from any country.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      And why only solar panels

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 )

      Except for one very important point in the summary. China has everyone by the balls. It will hurt us more than it will hurt them and the world has only itself to blame.

    • Can you point to a validated list of companies and products made by Uyghur slave labor?

      I would like to avoid them, and the State Department could use it.

      • Can you point to a validated list of companies and products made by Uyghur slave labor?

        I would like to avoid them, and the State Department could use it.

        Make one for the American slave labor products too while you're at it.
        Since America is pretending to care about slave labor, they may as well clean up their own backyard too.

        • So no more "wage slaves" [businessinsider.com] then?

          • The main difference is what happens to you when you 'opt out' of the work.

            One group you're put into solitary.
            The other you are just put out on the street.

            Some of the second group then join the first group for the three meals and a roof over their head.

        • Fine, here is a complete list of US products produced with slave labor:

          {NULL ARRAY}

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dutt ( 738848 )

        Here is a list of such products you asked for.

        https://www.dol.gov/agencies/i... [dol.gov]

    • And yet people flock to Walmart in droves to buy that shit. You want to fuck over China? Get the US government to shut down all the Walmarts and throw the Waltons in jail for aiding and abetting slave labour.
      • I think you need to check the labels when you shop. I *try* to buy domestic if possible. I just picked up a new run cap for my AC compressor and there was an american made one. I was shocked. 3X the price, but it was only 7.50 instead of 2.50 so I bought the US made one. But that required shopping online at multiple HVAC parts places to find a domestic made one. If I go to Lowes, HD, Target, ... big box retailer, at least 80% of the stuff is foreign made. The main exceptions being wood and concrete. Walmart

    • Iphones should be banned before solar panels

  • Let's stop pretending... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday June 27, 2021 @08:34AM (#61526086)
    ...that this is anything other than a trade war. Based on recent history, neither government could give a flying f**k about human rights or crimes against humanity.

    • Let's stop pretending that this is anything other than a trade war.

      If it were a trade war then it wouldn't be restricted to companies that use forced labor.

      • Let's stop pretending that this is anything other than a trade war.

        If it were a trade war then it wouldn't be restricted to companies that use forced labor.

        Why? It's convenient cover.

        Why not ban this too From the article [msn.com]

        By banning only Hoshine imports, CBP stopped short of targeting Xinjiang producers of another key solar ingredient, polysilicon. Those producers have also been connected to coercive labor programs targeting Uyghurs.

        It's the same slave labor, from the same slaves even.

        • It would be a convenient cover if they were banning all solar cell production but they aren't.

          CBP stopped short of targeting Xinjiang producers of another key solar ingredient, polysilicon. Those producers have also been connected to coercive labor programs targeting Uyghurs.

          It's the same slave labor, from the same slaves even.

          Probably because US companies are importing polysilicon and banning it would mean hurting US companies when it's vital for that sector to expand. It's a pragmatic decision but the ban could always be expanded.

        • Maybe wait and see if they're next? If you look at the CBP's list, you'll probably notice that they tend to do one company at a time. https://www.cbp.gov/trade/prog... [cbp.gov]

      • If it were a trade war then it wouldn't be restricted to companies that use forced labor.

        Sure it would, because the way international treaties are written you can't just arbitrarily apply a restriction without potentially facing sanctions. This is why you specifically look for some scapegoat so that if a counter restriction be it tarif or banned import is put in place, well then you can go whinge to the WTO. You only trip the opponents when the ref isn't looking.

        If the USA actually cared about forced labor they'd fix the problems at home in their prison systems first. Oh but they are prisoners,

        • Sure it would, because the way international treaties are written you can't just arbitrarily apply a restriction without potentially facing sanctions.

          It wouldn't be arbitrary to apply it to all solar panel manufacturers, it would be disingenuous but it wouldn't be arbitrary. China loves using tactics like this because the resolution is you go to the WTO and the WTO says the ban has to be refined. You can then do so without facing sanctions despite blocking more than you needed for probably 18 months before it's addressed. It's a shitty tactic but if you are in a trade war then it's one you would use.

          If the USA actually cared about forced labor they'd fix the problems at home in their prison systems first.

          There is no forced labor at the federal level. Unfo

        • No, they are treated like humans, just humans that did something which earned them a prison sentence. They broke the rules, were convicted of doing so by a jury of their peers, and thus earned themselves a term of exclusion from society and the liberties they assaulted. Possibly one that includes labor as part of the punishment. Maybe one that only includes limited labor without incarceration - that's called "community service".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swell ( 195815 )

      Solar is an industry. Software is an industry too, and moviemaking and making automobiles. Industries often compete with similar and different industries. Industries send lobbyists to government to 'encourage support' for their viewpoint. Don't we all know this?

      Who competes with the solar industry? Who would benefit if the solar business in the US should suffer supply problems? Let's think about that.

  • That's just not right, China. Also, I think I just realized that Britney Spears is a Uyghur.

  • If you have a huge untrained/captive base, you use them as human labor.

    If you have a high pay, low unemployment base, you use robotic manufacturing.

    There really isn't any reason you couldn't set up a factory complex that takes in raw material, and pumps out solar panels (other than the environmental impact and nimbys) in countries that don't have the huge base of slaves, umm I mean government volunteers.

  • China is an enemy society (Score:4, Interesting)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Sunday June 27, 2021 @09:33AM (#61526240)

    China is an enemy society in which ALL trade benefits the PLA/PLAN which means every dollar spent there funds the same military the US and other nations spend trillions to contain.

    That is not a matter of opinion no matter how the shills yowl.

    There can be no "clean" trade with an enemy system but Americans are greedy, stupid and most scornworthy of all, think like children. That is why the US will lose. The average moron is incapable of caring and the government will only make futile gestures as its owners benefit from trade.

  • In China, forced labor is an anti-poverty program. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday June 27, 2021 @10:02AM (#61526264) Homepage Journal

    The trick is in how you measure "poverty". The Chinese government defines poverty as having little disposable income. By that measure, a successful subsistence farmer with plenty of food and a decent house is the poorest anyone can be. A factory worker who has no choice but to work over 70 hours/week and has to live in a crowded tenement is not poor because he can buy stuff like televisions, which the system produces at astonishingly low prices. On paper forcing someone who is living a traditional lifestyle to become a factory worker raises his standard of living.

    The actual quality of life does not factor into Chinese government view of these programs, only the *proxies* for it government economists use. Likewise, forced labor doesn't exist on paper because the forces that compel people to work in the factories of politically connected companies are censored from that paper. If you ignore the actual actions by government officials to deprive people of their previous livelihood, it looks like unfortunate but impersonal economic factors at work. And if you don't see any value in minority cultures, the fact people are forced to adopt a more sinified lifestyle looks like reform.

    Unlike communism, capitalism as practiced in the West is not a system designed to conform to an academic ideal of society. It is the result of centuries of practical struggle with issues like abuses of untrammeled power and inhuman worker living conditions -- along with making a bigger profit than the next guy of course. It's a pragmatic compromise and in that compromise there is hard-won practical wisdom. But thinkers of a radical bent, like most Communists, measure it against their *ideal* -- a set of circumstances that have never existed and never will -- and only see the system's often very real shortcomings. And when people like that decide to *change* their ideology, they don't become moderate pragmatists. They become whatever their bogeyman used to be, in this case a society that exploits workers for the benefit of bourgeois owner class.

  • I worked on an R&D project trying to get a pilot scale (6MW) silicon smelter up to speed (I was but one of maybe 50 people actively working on it). The Iron Curtain was still up and the company was trying to find a way to get silicon cheaper using a new smelting process. There were a number of reasons for the project ending, but one of the biggest was that the communist countries opened up around that time due to the end of the Cold War, and they had and pretty much still have no labour or environmental

  • This gives new meaning to "stick it where the sun don't shine..." expression. Solar power save the world, environment, biosphere, only kill many human beings as slave labor to make them...

    That's what I call, "progress..."

    JoshK.

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