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> "Intel (INTC.O) recently published what it described as an annual letter to suppliers, dated December, that it had been 'required to ensure that its supply ch
by elihu 5y ago
> "Intel (INTC.O) recently published what it described as an annual letter to suppliers, dated December, that it had been 'required to ensure that its supply chain does not use any labour or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region', following restrictions imposed by 'multiple governments'."
As policies go, that one seems kind of clumsy. Assuming for the sake of argument that Uighurs are being used for forced labor in China (which I'm inclined to believe), then isn't "workers in Xinjiang region are forced labor, workers outside of Xinjiang are not" a bit of an oversimplification? Presumably there is also non-forced labor happening in Xinjiang, and probably some amount of forced labor happening outside Xinjiang.
I suppose sometimes simple heuristics can work well enough to get the job done and more complicated supply chain audits might be too hard. (One obvious alternative is to just stop trading with China at all, but that's a policy that's unlikely to be enacted by the U.S. or other large nations for equally obvious reasons.)
- dash2 5y agoIt's not that simple. If you're competing with local forced labour, your own wages will be artificially driven down. Unfairness spreads.
- ZoomerCretin 5y ago> isn't "workers in Xinjiang region are forced labor, workers outside of Xinjiang are not" a bit of an oversimplification? Not if you knew there was no forced labor in that region at all, and this was all just atrocity propaganda to turn opinion against China. If it's difficult for western corporations to avoid suppliers who depend on suppliers (and so on) who have factories in Xinjiang, then there will be constant stories like this which puts this ridiculous allegation back in the news and social media so we can have our two-minutes hate against the evil empire that's ~~challenging our imperialistic grip on the world~~ ""committing genocide"".