The funniest part about this ban is that it puts intense scrutiny on US supply chains, which are heavily reliant on prison labour.
I was gonna say, are they targeting the US then, which has one of the world's largest slave labor populations? Somehow I doubt they'll actually take action against the US for all the slave labor that happens there.
There will just be an exemption for supply chains with US elements.
Adrian Zenz, a German researcher at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, whose work on Xinjiang has been widely-cited by Western legislators, said it would be better to have “no legislation” than what the EU has proposed
Lol
Since not everybody is familiar with what an utter fraud Zens is, here's a quick summary on this quack.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
“It is appalling that in the 21st century slavery and forced labour still exist in the world,” said Pierre-Yves Dermagne, the deputy prime minister of Belgium, which holds the rotating EU presidency, prioritised the ban.
“This hideous crime must be eradicated and the first step to achieve this consists in breaking the business model of companies that exploit workers.”
Companies that exploit workers? How far are they going to go with that; is tying healthcare to employment and constantly raising output requirements considered exploitation?
Which country enslaves the greatest portion of its population? The USA through its prison system
“It is appalling that in the 21st century slavery and forced labour still exist in the world,”
United States: Stares in 13th Amendment
Just a casual reminder that some of those countries jail you for opposing genocide.
This is at a time when this sort of thing has made it harder for them to produce gun powder for Ukraine?
i don't wanna be the one to tell the slaves "hey guys i know forced labour sucks and all but we gotta have more ammo for this random war half-way across the globe so you'll just have to push through it"
same for things like EVs. i like things that use batteries a lot, but i'd really have a stronger guarantee that the materials to make it aren't sourced by slave labour or methods that harm the local ecosystem... i mean a large part of that problem is also that the US has fuck all for recycling laws, i don't think most lithium is actually recycled anyways. but that's a different topic
Xinjiang cotton is needed for ammunition, and it's clear the sanctions are purely for political-economical gain against China (since they don't believe in the forced labour stuff), so it looks like they're just cutting their nose off to spite their faces.
