'Tesla Opens Dealership in Xinjiang Amid "Human Rights Suppression" Controversy'

(Photo by Reuters)

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] American electric vehicle company Tesla has opened its first dealership in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which is at the center of controversies over human rights abuses in China.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 3rd (local time), Tesla announced through its Weibo account on the 31st of last month, "The Tesla Center officially opened in Urumqi," adding, "We met in Xinjiang on the last day of 2021. Let's start the electric vehicle journey together in Xinjiang in 2022."

The post also included photos of people posing while holding a banner that read "Tesla Heart Xinjiang" and performers dancing wearing traditional Chinese lion masks.

Unlike other automakers, Tesla has rapidly grown and achieved a series of successes in China. Tesla first established its Gigafactory plant in Shanghai in 2018 with support from Shanghai authorities. At that time, the Chinese government allowed Tesla to hold 100% ownership of the local factory, the first foreign automaker to do so.

According to Credit Suisse, more than half of Tesla’s estimated 936,000 global vehicle production last year came from the Shanghai factory.

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has faced severe international criticism amid testimonies that industrial-scale crimes against humanity, including forced labor, rape, torture, forced abortions, and hysterectomies against ethnic minorities, are being committed there.

Western countries such as the United States and the European Union (EU) have classified these measures against the Uygur people as genocide and have imposed various sanctions.

The Biden administration signed legislation that, in principle, bans the import of goods produced in the Xinjiang region in response to concerns over forced labor and sanctioned individuals and companies involved in the human rights abuses against the Uygur people.

The EU also sanctioned four Chinese officials and one organization responsible for the oppression of the Uygur people. This is the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in Beijing that the EU has imposed sanctions on China related to human rights violations, including an arms embargo.

Chinese authorities and consumers have responded to Western pressure with boycotts. Sam’s Club, a membership warehouse club affiliated with Walmart in the U.S., faced a consumer boycott in China after excluding products made in Xinjiang, and U.S. semiconductor company Intel issued guidelines to its partners not to use products from the Xinjiang region but later issued an apology amid criticism.

Meanwhile, German automaker Volkswagen, which operates a factory in Urumqi alongside Tesla, has faced criticism from Western human rights groups and politicians but denied allegations of forced labor and stated it would not comply with such demands.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.