Located in the western suburbs of Urumqi, the factory had become a textbook case of business sensitivity for Western brands in China. Volkswagen finally announced, Wednesday, November 27, the sale of its industrial site in the capital of Xinjiang as well as a vehicle test track in a desert area, 240 kilometers away, in this region known for the repression of Uighur minority.
The German giant opened the Urumqi industrial site in 2013, backed by the Chinese partner with whom the legislation forced it to operate, the Shanghai state automobile group SAIC, to assemble a model at the time symbol of a certain status. social, the Santana. The presence of Western production lines in this area of far West China has become difficult to defend, after a massive system of internment camps was set up from 2016.
Probably 1 million members of the region's Muslim minorities were sent there as part of a policy of systematic indoctrination in response to a series of terrorist attacks. The use of forced labor to leave no chance for idleness, after the phase of detention for re-education, has further complicated the equation for the companies present on site.
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In 2019, market developments led Volkswagen to stop assembly at this plant to devote it to technical testing, with staff dropping from 650 employees to 197. That same year, the South German newspaper revealed a “good neighborly agreement” with the policy providing for “patriotic training” and a “military training” to workers at the factory, which employed a quarter of Uighurs. The Wolfsburg group was the largest multinational in the area, it was criticized by rights protection associations and the exiled Uighur community for having commissioned a social audit that only looked at the surface to conclude that there were no problems.
Ideological sessions before working hours
Then, in February 2024, an investigation by the researcher behind a significant part of the revelations on the situation in Xinjiang, Adrian Zenz, published with the economic daily Handelsblattrecounted how Uighurs from the south of the region were transferred by the subcontractor to the construction site of the immense test track, near the town of Tourfan, under the pretext of a policy of eradicating poverty. They appeared there in military uniforms, in 2017 and 2018, at the height of the repression, with ideological sessions before working hours.
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