British bank, HSBC, has admitted to holding over 3 million dollars of shares in Chinese chemical and plastics company, Xinjiang Tianye Group.
Last year, Sheffield Hallam University released a report that found Xinjiang Tianye documents suggesting the company’s role in many “poverty alleviation programs” including “labor transfers” and “vocational training programs.”
These terms are synonymous with the systematic erasure of Uyghur culture and breakdown of the population through forced labor and other human rights violations.
Further, Xinjiang Tianye is a self-described ”state-owned enterprise in the eighth division of XPCC.”
XPCC is the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, also known as “the corps” – the state economic and paramilitary organization which controls much of the Uyghur Region and also runs some of the infamous detention and forced labor camps.
HSBC is the U.K.’s largest bank and the second largest bank in Europe, bought the shares on behalf of an anonymous client and earns a profit for its safekeeping.
The bank insists that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it operates.” But, while it may comply with Hong Kong laws, the London headquartered bank is not complying with regulations in all its jurisdictions according to some British members of parliament.
Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the U.K. Conservative Party which is currently in power, called HSBC’s actions are “in creachof Modern-Day Slavery rules” and is asking his government to “call that bank in and ask them to explain themselves.”
Across the pond, U.S. senator, Marco Rubio, stated that HSBC is “another example of a company turning a blind eye to genocide and slavery just to turn a profit.” Will the U.K. government take HSBC to task? Only time will tell.
In the meanwhile, Freedom United community members through a global campaign calling on the Chinese government to put an end to the detention and forced labor camps in the Uyghur Region
