German automaker Volkswagen said Wednesday that it has sold its operations in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing has been accused of widespread human rights abuses against Uyghurs.
Activists and experts have accused VW of allowing the use of Uyghur slave labor at the its joint-venture plant with Chinese state-owned company SAIC Motor Corp. in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
In a statement, the company cited “economic reasons” for its pullout from Xinjiang, home to about 12 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, where it also has a test track in Turpan.
“While many SVW [SAIC-Volkswagen] sites are being, or have already been, converted to produce electric vehicles based on customer demand, alternative economic solutions will be examined in individual cases,” the statement said.
“This also applies to the joint venture site in Urumqi,” it said. “Due to economic reasons, the site has now been sold by the joint venture as part of the realignment. The same applies to the test tracks in Turpan and Anting [in Shanghai].”
The plant was sold to Shanghai Motor Vehicle Inspection Certification, or SMVIC, a subsidiary of state-owned Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group for an undisclosed amount, Reuters reported.
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The sale comes two months after an expert who obtained a leaked confidential copy of Volkswagen’s audit of its joint venture plant in Xinjiang said the document contained flaws that made it unreliable.
Volkswagen declared in December 2023 that the audit of its Urumqi factory showed no signs of human rights violations.
But after analyzing the leaked audit report, Adrian Zenz, senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, found that contrary to its claims, the audit failed to use international standards and was conducted by questionable examiners.
Zenz, an expert on Xinjiang, concluded that the audit’s methodology was faulty and insufficient and that the report was “unsuited to meaningfully assess the presence or absence of forced labor at the factory.”
Zenz called the news a “huge victory for the Uyghurs.”
“This step was long overdue, he told RFA. “Sadly, it took public pressure and showcasing the full extent of the sham of the audit.”
Strong international pressure
Gheyyur Qurban, director of the Berlin office of the World Uyghur Congress who has led anti-Volkswagen activities, said Volkswagen’s withdrawal from Xinjiang was not due to economic reasons, but was linked to strong international pressure over the Uyghur issue.
He said the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur advocacy group based in Germany, pressured the automaker to leave the region and forced it to defend itself before the international community.
In the statement, Volkswagen also said it was extending its joint venture agreement with SAIC until 2040 to introduce new vehicles to meet China’s growing market demand for electric cars. The original agreement was in place until 2030.
The news came as the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting issued a statement expressing concern over the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in Tibet persecuted by the Chinese government.
The G7, or Group of Seven, comprises the major industrial nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and the European Union.
“We remain concerned by the human rights situation in China, including in Xinjiang and Tibet,” said the statement, which urged China to abide by its international human rights commitments and legal obligations.
But Rushan Abbas, chairperson of the executive committee at the World Uyghur Congress, said that the carefully worded statement was insufficient.
“The genocide persists, conditions worsen and concrete actions remain lacking,” she said, referring to China’s violence targeting the Uyghurs, which the U.S. and some Western parliaments have recognized as genocide.
“While de-risking supply chains is vital, it must be paired with bold measures to hold China accountable for state-sponsored forced labor,” Abbas said. “Awareness demands action. We urge G7 nations to move beyond rhetoric and lead in holding China accountable for its human rights abuses.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.