The Dirty Secret of ‘Clean’ Energy
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-dirty-secret-of-clean-energy/June 1, 2021
...China dominates the global supply chain for solar power and is the leading exporter of solar panels and critical components for making solar panels. For instance, about 95 percent of solar modules rely on one mineral — solar-grade polysilicon, and China produces 80 percent of the world supply of polysilicon. Xinjiang alone is responsible for 45 percent of the world’s supply of polysilicon. Such a high level of production requires a significant supply of labor.
The Sheffield Hallam University report, titled “In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labor and Global Solar Supply Chains,” shows how China’s booming solar industry has been tainted by the forced labor of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
For example, U.K. researchers located an official Chinese government paper published in 2020 that acknowledged that the government had placed about 2.6 million minorities in farms and factories within Xinjiang and across China through state-sponsored “surplus labor” and “labor transfer” programs. Many minorities in these programs ended up working for Xinjiang’s growing solar industry. However, the Chinese government claims these labor-transfer programs comply with China’s laws and regulations, and workers’ participation in these programs is voluntary.
But based on the Chinese government’s own directives, state-media reports, and personal testimonies from Uyghurs, the report paints an entirely different picture. Local authorities in Xinjiang were instructed to place “trainees” — Uyghurs and other minorities who were forcefully put into the internment camps — in various jobs after they completed their terms in the camps, regardless of their wishes or desires. Some “trainees” would be sent to work at factories near the camps. Researchers identified at least 135 such “reeducation” camps co-located with or close to factories. Other less fortunate “trainees” were transferred to factories across the country, far from their homes and loved ones....
