{"id":125421,"date":"2022-02-16T18:41:30","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=125421"},"modified":"2022-02-16T18:41:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:41:30","slug":"police-officers-patrolling-the-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region-of-china-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/police-officers-patrolling-the-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region-of-china-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Police officers patrolling the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China in 2018."},"content":{"rendered":"

(CNN)<\/cite>The International Finance Corporation, one of the world’s leading development banks, has for decades touted its success in funding companies it says can help end extreme poverty in developing countries.<\/p>\n

But new research suggests the organization, which operates under the World Bank Group, has been providing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to companies that may be relying on forced labor from Uyghur and other ethnic minority groups in China’s western Xinjiang region.
\nThe report, titled “Financing and Genocide: Development Finance and the Crisis in the Uyghur Region,” presents evidence that in recent years the IFC has loaned money to four Chinese companies that have been linked to forced labor and land expropriation in the region, along with environmental damage and the destruction of indigenous cultural heritage sites.
\nAccording to public disclosures, the four companies named in the report \u2014 Chenguang Biotech Group, Camel Group, Century Sunshine and Jointown Pharmaceutical Group \u2014 have received loans and equity investments from the IFC valued at $439 million. Including loans sourced from institutional investors via the IFC, that figure rises to around $485 million.
\nThe loans could contravene the IFC’s own internal guidelines \u2014 known as its Performance Standards \u2014 which function entirely to “prevent IFC from financing projects that will have adverse environmental and social impacts that jeopardize [its] development aims,” according to the report. <\/p>\n

\n

I think it's clear that the IFC needs to divest from all their investments in the Uyghur region<\/p>\n

Laura Murphy, Sheffield Hallam University<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a statement, an IFC spokesperson told CNN the corporation has “strong environment, social and governance (ESG) standards” that are diligently applied during the life of the investment and are considered a model for development finance worldwide.
\n“We do not tolerate discrimination or forced labor under any circumstances,” the spokesperson said. “Whenever such serious allegations are brought to our attention, we work to verify and address them with our clients with urgency.”
\nCNN sought comment from the four Chinese companies named in the report but had not received a response by the time of publication. The report’s authors also said they attempted to contact them but did not receive a response. <\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

‘Punished with internment’<\/h3>\n

Xinjiang has become a geopolitical hotspot because of the breadth of human rights abuses alleged to have taken place in the region, including what some Western governments have called the “genocide” of Uyghurs and other minorities.
\nThe US State Department has estimated that since 2017 up to two million members of religious and ethnic minorities have been imprisoned in a shadowy network of internment camps.
\nChina has described the facilities as “vocational training centers” where people learn job skills, Chinese language and laws, and officials declared in 2019 that such centers \u2014 also aimed at deradicalizing local Muslims \u2014 had been closed down. They also claimed that the original detainees had graduated but that people were still enrolling to gain new skills.
\nWestern governments and human rights organizations have alleged that minorities in the region have been subjected to forced labor through job creation schemes run by the Chinese government to achieve “poverty alleviation.”
\nWorkers who have participated in those job programs have told CNN that if they did not take the jobs they were offered, for a fraction of the usual rate of pay, they were warned they would be sent to camps.
\n“The Chinese government has embarked on a massive campaign which they deem to be poverty alleviation,” said Murphy of Sheffield Hallam. “These programs are often non-consensual, and people who refuse can be punished with internment.”<\/p>\n

\n

Such attempts to attack and smear China based on lies and disinformation are bound to fail<\/p>\n

Chinese government statement<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

China has consistently denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and told CNN in a statement that claims of forced labor were lies created to smear its reputation.
\n“China has repeatedly emphasized that the so-called issues of ‘forced labor’ and ‘repression’ against ethnic minorities are huge lies concocted by anti-China forces in the US and the West. They are entirely baseless. Such attempts to attack and smear China based on lies and disinformation are bound to fail,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Concerns raised about IFC outcomes <\/h3>\n

Based in Washington, D.C., the IFC describes itself as the “largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries.”
\nIt is part of the World Bank Group and says it provided roughly $31.5 billion in loans and other financial assistance \u2014 including nearly $12 billion in “fragile, conflict-affected, and poverty-stricken countries” \u2014 last fiscal year to private companies and financial institutions in emerging and developing economies around the world.
\nThe IFC spokesperson told CNN its mission is to “fight poverty by helping the private sector thrive.” “In doing so, we create jobs and raise living standards, especially for the poor and vulnerable,” the spokesperson said.
\nBut its investments have been criticized for years by charities that accuse the IFC of sometimes causing more harm than good by failing to carry out due diligence.
\nIn 2015, Oxfam International published a report compiled with input from several NGOs that claimed the IFC sent billions of dollars in “out of control” investments to third parties that caused “human rights abuses around the world.”
\nIFC said at the time that it was working with its clients to resolve issues raised by Oxfam and other civil society organizations and that it valued any insights into those concerns. The organization also said that it took additional efforts to train its staff and be more selective about its clients and was strengthening oversight and supervision.
\nThe World Bank Group had been acknowledging concerns even prior to that report. In 2013, the organization’s Independent Evaluation Group highlighted declining “outcome ratings” for IFC-financed projects and advised the IFC to focus on “supervision” and “enhancing the quality of projects” through “intensified efforts.”
\nCNN approached the World Bank Group for comment about the Helena Kennedy Centre’s findings, and a spokesperson directed CNN to the IFC’s response.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Alleged connections to forced labor <\/h3>\n

The four Chinese companies with ties to Xinjiang named in the Helena Kennedy Centre report work in sectors ranging from food to pharmaceuticals and energy. Using corporate documents, stock exchange filings, Chinese state media reports, IFC disclosures and satellite imagery, the report claims these companies have ties to parts of the region where allegations of forced labor are rampant.
\nIn some cases, the report says these companies have participated in state-endorsed “labor transfer” or “poverty alleviation” schemes, which international human rights organizations and foreign governments have for years claimed perpetuate forced labor in the region.
\nCNN has independently verified that the four companies named in the Helena Kennedy Centre report have all received loans from the IFC in recent years. At least two of those loans, made to Camel Group and Jointown Pharmaceutical, have been used to finance projects in Xinjiang. Because the firms are all publicly traded on Chinese stock exchanges, corporate filings detail some of their dealings in the region. Chinese state media reports also explain some of their work, while the IFC’s own records shed some light on the organization’s involvement in providing financing to these firms.
\nOne company, Chenguang Biotech Group, makes food additives, natural dyes and pigments, and sources its raw materials primarily from India and Xinjiang. In Xinjiang, the company is involved in the production of marigolds.
\nThe IFC, which loaned Chenguang $40 million in 2019 so the company could increase production, conducted an assessment that found the company’s risk of being implicated in forced labor with respect to marigold growers to be “low” and that overall “the risks in Chenguang’s primary supply chain are low to medium.”
\nBut according to the Helena Kennedy Centre report, Chenguang sources some of its workforce from “coercive” state-sponsored labor and land transfer programs.
\nThe report claims that in some cases farmers have no say in whether to participate in major farming projects, or what they want to plant. Companies, too, are under pressure to support state programs.<\/p>\n

\"&#39;How
\n\"'How<\/p>\n