New Controversy Over Uyghur Slave Labor Urges Rubio to Pressure White House Into Action

Despite the enactment of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which prohibits the importation of goods manufactured in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), recent reports allege some XUAR-based pharmaceutical companies are still exporting to the US.

Xinjiang Nuziline Bio-Pharmaceutical Co. and SEL Biochem Xinjiang Co are, according to the reports, rumored to use forced labor in order to maintain competitive export prices. 

Nuziline produces an estimated quarter of the world’s PMU (pregnant mare urine extract) estrogen.

In response to the reports, US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), one of the authors of the UFLPA, sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner (FDA) Robert Califf and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding both pharmaceutical companies be blacklisted. 

Senator Rubio expressed concern that the FDA and DHS have not “conducted sufficient oversight into the pharmaceutical and API producers allowed to conduct business in the U.S., nor made sufficient efforts to uphold U.S. law. “

“The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act assures the American people that the products they purchase were made without slave labor,” continued Rubio. “It is clear that the lack of oversight by the FDA has not made this true. The FDA and DHS have a responsibility to rectify this dangerous error and uphold the law.”

To this end, Rubio requested both agencies to “immediately place Xinjiang Nuziline Bio-Pharmaceutical Co. and SEL Biochem Xinjiang Co. on the UFLPA Entity List,” effectively banning their imports from US entry. 

Rubio has been a leading advocate of the opposition to XUAR slave labor, leading and supporting a number of legislative measures to counteract it. 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has previously stated allegations of forced labor are “an enormous lie propagated by anti-China elements to smear China.”

American lawmakers, however, point to myriad reports substantiating claims of slave labor use in the XUAR. 

Evidence from sources such as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China is frequently cited as revealing “authorities in the XUAR maintained a system of forced labor  that involved former mass internment camp detainees.”