A Volkswagen ID.6 Crozz, presented during the 20th Changchun International Automobile Exhibition, China, July 20, 2023. YAN LINYUN/XINHUA VIA AFP Located in the western suburbs of Urumqi, the factory had become a case school of sensitivity for Western brands of business in China. Volkswagen finally announced, on 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. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Crisis at Volkswagen: the German social model put to the test Read later In 2019, market developments led Volkswagen to stop assembly in this factory to devote it to technical tests, with staff passing through from 650 employees to 197. That same year, the Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed a “good neighborly agreement” with the police providing for “patriotic training” and “military training” for workers from 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 Handelsblatt, recounted how southern Uighurs of the region were transferred by the subcontractor of 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. You have 68.37% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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Volkswagen is extricating itself from Xinjiang but is increasingly struggling in China
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