The United States and Taiwan have revived dormant trade and investment negotiations and pledged to keep supply chains free from forced labor, in a dig against China, which opposed the negotiations .
The trade talks, held by videoconference on Wednesday, were the first between the United States and Taiwan since 2016, and delegations said they would work together “as democratic partners in support of a trade policy centered on the United States. workers”. As part of this, they said, they would aim to âcombat forced labor in global supply chainsâ.
The United States has taken steps to blacklist forced labor products from China’s Xinjiang region, where the government detains massively Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. The Trump administration banned imports of cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang, while the Biden administration last week banned a key raw material for solar panels made by a company, as well as the products that came out of it.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which led the talks, said the U.S. and Taiwan will establish a new labor task force to pursue the issue.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington disputed the existence of forced labor in Xinjiang and said the allegations were part of a program to contain China’s growth and create industrial separation or decoupling. “This attempt will never succeed,” said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the embassy. Earlier in June, Beijing condemned the planned resumption of trade talks between the United States and Taiwan, opposing official interactions between the United States and Taiwan, which China claims to be part of its territory.