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A material world: Will Biden ban solar products from China over Muslim treatment?

'The kind of brutality that we’re talking about is offensive to just about anybody who would ever see these sorts of practices being used,' says US lawmaker

12:05 - 22/06/2021 Salı
Update: 12:07 - 22/06/2021 Salı
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We are all familiar with Madonna’s famous “Material Girl,” which swept through the 80s like TikTok is plaguing our world today, whether we like it or not. Now Joe Biden has to make a choice between taking a stand for human rights or buying solar materials that could reduce carbon emissions.

According to four people familiar with the plans of Washington, the Joe Biden administration is weighing a ban on imports of solar panel material from China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing has concentrated close to a million ethnic Uyghur Muslims, in what global media has described as  “draconian” treatment.

According to the article published in Politico, U.S. lawmakers are pushing Biden to impose import restrictions on polysilicon, a key component inside most solar panels that could “help replace fossil fuels and allow the U.S. to eliminate carbon emissions from power generation by 2035.”

“The kind of brutality that we’re talking about is offensive to just about anybody who would ever see these sorts of practices being used,” said Democrat Dan Kildee, one of the lawmakers urging action against China.

The Trump administration had also placed similar import bans on cotton, tomatoes and other products from Xinjiang.

China's erosion of the religious, cultural, and human rights of over one million ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang over the last decade has enraged western countries, prompting sanctions against Chinese officials and firms.

In the recent past, a campaign was launched to boycott companies that export cotton grown in the province where officials are accused of putting Uyghurs into concentration camps which China defines as re-education and training centers. Beijing vehemently denies rights violations of its citizens.

Last year, several Chinese firms based in Xinjiang also came under US sanctions. Similarly, the UK, Canada, and the EU have sanctioned Chinese officials for their role in alleged human rights violations inflicted on Uyghurs.

#China
#Uyghur
#Muslims
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