Human rights activists on Tuesday pleaded with Tesla to close the store it just opened in China’s concentration camp province of Xinjiang and accused CEO Elon Musk of supporting genocide by doing business with the oppressors of the Uyghur Muslim people.
Tesla announced the grand opening of its first store in Xinjiang on Friday. The announcement was entirely festive and made no mention of China’s brutal oppression of the Uyghurs, who have been herded into prison camps by the millions, viciously abused, subjected to ideological reprogramming, and sold as slaves.
The Trump administration classified China’s repression of the Uyghurs as “genocide” in January 2021, a designation supported by many international human rights organizations. In late December, President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a law that requires companies to prove goods imported into the United States from Xinjiang are not tainted with slave labor. Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also referred to the Uyghur genocide as a “genocide.”
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), author of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, slammed Tesla for opening its Xinjiang store so soon after the Act was signed into law:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday called upon Musk to close Tesla’s Xinjiang showroom and “cease what amounts to economic support for genocide.”
“No American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority,” said CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper.
Tesla did not respond to CAIR’s demand, nor has it responded to numerous media inquiries about the Xinjiang store opening.
The Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, did respond – by threatening Tesla to remain obedient to the Party and keep quiet about the Uyghurs unless it wants to lose its lucrative business in China, its largest market after the United States:
“There is this tension between global investors and the Chinese government. The global investors want market access. And the Chinese government says the cost of access is acquiescence,” Michael Dunne, chief executive of auto industry investment consulting firm Zo Zo Go, poignantly observed.
CAIR’s reaction was similar to that of Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director Kenneth Roth, who asked what Tesla management was thinking by “choosing to open a showroom in Xinjiang as the Chinese government, through its mass detention and persecution, is committing crimes against humanity there against Uyghur/Turkic Muslims.”
“So how is Elon Musk going to avoid complicity in the Chinese government’s use of forced Uyghur Muslim labor in Xinjiang as Tesla opens a showroom there? Does he suddenly have a transparent supply chain that Beijing allows to no one else?” Roth added sarcastically on Tuesday.
“Beijing and businesses have long banked on a global willingness to put profits ahead of human rights, even in the face of crimes against humanity, but we must not allow this to continue in 2022. Elon Musk and his Tesla executives need to consider human rights in Xinjiang or risk being complicit,” HRW Australia researcher Sophie McNeill said.
“This is outrageous. To open a showroom in a region where genocide is being perpetrated is scandalous. Elon Musk and Tesla should re-think, quickly,” said Hong Kong Watch chief executive Benedict Rogers.
“The defiant Tesla seems to be unbothered about the future it’s helping to build, one in which slavery is acceptable as long as it profits from the lucrative Chinese market. Aiding and abetting crimes against humanity is nothing to be proud to launch,” said human rights lawyer and Atlantic Council senior fellow Rayhan E. Asat.
Uyghur advocacy groups like the World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur Human Rights Project called Tesla’s store in Xinjiang “shameful” and “deeply unacceptable.”
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