Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur.
Chinese exports of tomatoes, chili peppers, marigolds and other farm products grown in the far-western region of Xinjiang are tainted by forced labor as well as the coercive transfer of land from Uyghur peasants to Chinese businesses, new research shows.
The growing of these goods is also tainted by the forced assimilation and political indoctrination of Uyghur workers, according to 136-page report by Adrian Zenz and I-Lin Lin of the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Dozens of Western companies, including Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Del Monte, PepsiCo, McCormick, Unilever and L’Oreal, are importing these goods, although they often enter supply chains through intermediaries, blurring their origin, the report found.
The report identified 72 international companies and 18 Chinese firms with production in Xinjiang or supply chain links, or a risk of such links, to the region’s agricultural products.
“It means that we have a much bigger system of forced labor and forced land transfer that is affecting many agricultural communities in Xinjiang and is directly serving the political goals of the regime to achieve political long-term transformation of these populations and taint the supply chains as a result,” Zenz told Radio Free Asia in an interview.
Sources of information
The investigation used planning documents from various Chinese administrative levels, state reports, budgets, academic papers, propaganda narratives and witness reports.
It was also based on internal state documents, corporate documents, information from the Made-in-China website, data from e-commerce platforms, the global supply chain intelligence platform Sayari and the U.S. customs database ImportInfo.
Chinese companies implicated in Uyghur forced labor included COFCO Tunhe Tomato, Xinjiang Chalkis, which processes tomatoes and fruits, and Chenguang Biotech Group, a high-tech firm that specializes in the extraction and application of plant active ingredients.
The three companies operate subsidies in the United States or Europe and have been implicated in rights abuses in Xinjiang, the report says.
The report singles out U.S. ketchup-maker Kraft Heinz for ongoing collaboration with China’s COFCO Tunhe Tomato, providing the Chinese company with tomato seeds and technical collaboration.
It also says cosmetics maker L’Oreal buys products from non-Chinese-based intermediaries in Asia whose supply chains are connected to Chinese-based companies or to suppliers of products whose domestic goods are sold in Western supermarkets.
Unilever Pakistan Foods, a Unilever subsidiary, buys tomato products from COFCO Tunhe Tomato and exports them to the U.S. Canada and the United Kingdom.
Abuses in Xinjiang
The Chinese government has come under attack in recent years for abuses in Xinjiang that include the mass detainment of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang and the use of Uyghur forced labor there.
“Xinjiang operates the world’s largest contemporary system of state-imposed forced labor, with up to 2.5 million Uyghurs and members of other ethnic groups at risk of coerced work,” the report says.
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The report also cites pressure on Uyghurs to give up the right to farm their land to commercial operators who coerce them into wage labor in processing bases operated by Chinese agribusinesses.
The report’s findings show that land-use transfer shares in Xinjiang grew nearly 50-fold between 2001 and 2021, indicating a “staggering scale at which ethnic peasants were rendered landless and then pushed into state-mandated work.”
“This is resulting in profound livelihood changes and [the] tearing apart of organic communities, ensuring that Uyghurs are more easily and thoroughly controlled, surveilled, and assimilated,” it says.
The U.S. government and over 10 Western parliaments have declared that the abuses in Xinjiang amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which took effect in the U.S. in June 2022, prevents companies from importing any goods produced in Xinjiang unless they can prove forced labor was not used.
‘Vicious lie’
When asked to comment on the report, Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said China has “repeatedly emphasized that the so-called ‘forced labor’ issue is a vicious lie fabricated by anti-China forces.”
“Xinjiang implements proactive labor and employment policies, effectively safeguarding the basic employment rights of people from all ethnic groups,” he said via email.
Liu accused the U.S. of repeatedly spreading rumors and stirring up trouble regarding Xinjiang by using human rights to engage in political manipulation and economic bullying in an attempt to undermine the region’s prosperity and stability and curb China’s development.
Liu further said that Zenz, known as Zheng Guoen in China, is a member of a far-right organization established by the U.S. government, and a key member of an anti-China research institution set up and manipulated by U.S. intelligence agencies.
“He makes a living by fabricating anti-China rumors and slandering China,” Liu said. “His so-called report has no credibility, academic value, or academic integrity.”
Company responses
Zenz and Lin said they contacted the companies named in the report with detailed requests for comment, but several could not be reached, while others provided invalid email addresses.
Some did respond. U.S. ketchup-maker Kraft Heinz said it used COFCO-supplied tomato products only in China and Central Asia, despite information by the researchers that its subsidiaries in Indonesia and India also bought tomato paste from COFCO in 2023 and 2024.
French cosmetics manufacturer L’Oreal denied a direct supply chain relationship with suppliers linked to Xinjiang, but did not address the indirect supply chain ties outlined in the report.
U.S. spice-maker McCormick didn’t comment on specific allegations, but said its policy prohibits the use of forced labor in its supply chain.
American fruits and vegetables distributor Del Monte said its multiple COFCO Tunhe suppliers certified that they did not use forced labor.
Concern over findings
Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, said the research findings present the most comprehensive evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s genocide against the Uyghurs extending deep into the agricultural sector, affecting global supply chains, and implicating major international brands.
“The forced transfer of land rights from Uyghur farmers to Chinese corporations, combined with coercive labor practices and political indoctrination, represents yet another facet of the regime’s systematic assault on Uyghur rights and identity,” she said in a statement.
“Of particular concern is the ongoing strategic relationship between Kraft Heinz and COFCO, a state-owned enterprise in East Turkistan that actively participates in the surveillance of Uyghur households and enforces policies linked to cultural assimilation and forced labor,” Abbas said, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of international lawmakers from democratic countries focused on relations with China also raised concern over the report’s findings.
“Disturbingly, goods linked to forced labor are being sold worldwide under trusted, household brand names deceiving consumers and perpetuating the cycle of exploitation,” 46 lawmakers from the group said in a statement.
Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.