The US chipmaker Intel has apologised for telling its suppliers not to source products or labour from Xinjiang, a province that human rights groups and governments including the US allege uses forced labour, after facing a backlash across China.
Intel, which derives more than a quarter of its $80bn (£60bn) in annual revenues from the Chinese market, apologised to the people of China and its local partners on Thursday for telling suppliers to avoid the region in accordance with restrictions imposed by “multiple governments”.
“We apologise for the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners and the public,” Intel said in a post on the social media site WeChat, hours after its annual letter to suppliers was made public, prompting fury across China. “To clarify, the paragraph about Xinjiang in the letter is only for expressing the original intention of compliance and legality, not its intention or position.”
The US and Amnesty International have accused China of widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang against the province’s majority Muslim Uyghur population, including forced labour, mass internment and torture, which Beijing denies.
Earlier this month, Intel published its annual letter to suppliers saying that it had been “required to ensure that its supply chain does not use any labour or source goods or services” from Xinjiang. The letter, which is available in English and Chinese, went viral on Chinese social media this week.
The Global Times, a Beijing-backed nationalist tabloid, accused Intel of biting “the hand that feeds it” and said the move was “absurd”. “What we need to do is to make it increasingly expensive for companies to offend China so their losses outweigh their gains,” the newspaper said in an editorial.
The Chinese pop starWang Junkai posted on his official Weibo microblog that he would no longer serve as an Intel brand ambassador, adding that “national interests exceed everything”.
Multinational companies have come under pressure as they aim to comply with Xinjiang-related trade sanctions while continuing to operate in China, one of their biggest markets.
Brands including Nike and H&M have come under pressure in China for voicing concerns about the treatment of Uyghurs, or trying to eliminate Xinjiang from their supply chains.
Earlier this month, the US senate passed a new law barring imports from China’s north-western region unless businesses can prove they were produced without forced labour.
The US has also announced a diplomatic boycott of Beijing’s Winter Olympic Games next year in protest against the alleged abuses.
The Global Times said in its editorial that multinationals “should be able to endure, properly handle and balance pressure from all parties”.
