The Greater Wellington Regional Council is investigating whether the 98 electric buses it is on the verge of leasing were made by Uyghurs in China who were forced into the work.
The potential links highlight the challenges in buying goods made in China, where the supply chains are often opaque, and come amid a broader effort to ensure New Zealand is not supporting modern slavery.
Chinese company CRRC is manufacturing buses and trains for New Zealand companies, despite alleged ties to forced labour, according to a news report published this week.
A total of 98 CRRC-made electric buses had already been ordered for Wellington, with the first one due to hit the streets in July, Greater Wellington Regional council transport committee chairman Roger Blakeley confirmed yesterday.
Sixty-seven complete buses were coming for NZ Bus. A further 31 – which were just bus chassis – were coming for Tranzurban.
Bus companies were wholly responsible for the decision to use CRRC, Blakeley said, and he first heard about CRRC’s alleged forced labour links through media reports.
Blakeley has sought advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the regional council had launched an investigation that would involve getting legal advice.
“We acknowledge that ethical procurement is emerging as an important issue, particularly with respect to significant international procurement. The integrity of the supply chain is paramount,” he said.
“We require operators to comply with all applicable laws, licences, standards, consents and good industry practice relevant to providing services as a public transport operator.”
The first stage of that investigation would be looking into the validity of the forced labour claims then, if they were true, it would look at what options the council had, Blakeley said.
It would also look at whether the council did proper due diligence and whether its code of conduct for suppliers was adequate.
CRRC was named in February 2020 by Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) as one of 82 “foreign and Chinese companies potentially directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur workers outside Xinjiang through abusive labour transfer programs as recently as 2019”.
China’s alleged persecution of 12 million Uyghur Muslim people has been condemned around the world. Earlier this month, the US State Department declared China was committing genocide and crimes against humanity.
In March, the New Zealand government supported the US, Britain, Canada, and the European Union when they announced sanctions aimed at freezing the assets of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a paramilitary force which is held responsible for human rights abuse.
Jason Young, director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington-Te Herenga Waka, said any product coming out of the Xinjiang area had a greater chance of using forced labour.
He was not aware of any comprehensive New Zealand list of companies that dealt with Uyghur forced labour making it hard for purchasers to know what to avoid.
Greater Wellington councillor Thomas Nash said news that CRRC was allegedly involved in slave labour was disturbing. He also only became aware of it this week.
He had since found out that ASPI had written about the issue, and named CRRC, about a year ago.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124991671/are-wellingtons-new-buses-being-made-by-forced-uyghur-labour-an-investigation-is-under-way
