Late in 2024, Volkswagen closed a factory in Xinjiang that had been plausibly accused of benefiting from forced labor. Much pressure had to be exerted to bring about the closure after Volkswagen’s apparent complicity first came to light.
Volkswagen first tried to salvage the situation by auditing its Xinjiang factory itself in hopes of proving that all was well. But as the Victims of Communism (VOC) Memorial Foundation showed, the audit was a cover-up.
About both the factory and the audit, the Foundation helped expose the truth (“VOC Commends Volkswagen for Closing Factory Linked to Forced Labor in China,” VOC China Studies, December 20, 2024).
VOC’s research has consistently exposed Volkswagen’s connections to forced labor in Xinjiang. A groundbreaking investigation by Dr. Adrian Zenz, VOC Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies, in February [2024] revealed that the company’s test track in Turpan was built using transferred Uyghur laborers who were subjected to military drills, indoctrination, and invasive surveillance. Documents show that the SAIC-VW test track project actively participated in government work teams monitoring Uyghur families and facilitated the transfer of Uyghur laborers to state-arranged, mandatory workplaces during the peak of mass internments in 2017 and 2018.
Additionally, VOC’s September analysis of the full confidential audit of the Volkswagen factory in Xinjiang exposed significant flaws in the company’s December 2023 claims that its Xinjiang operations were free from forced labor concerns.
That the audit proved to be slipshod and corrupt is unsurprising when we learn that one of the firms that helped conduct it for Volkswagen is “a Chinese law firm with significant ties to the CCP.” The auditors’ methods—including the use of remotely monitored and non-anonymous interviews with workers, interviews subject to state surveillance—“precluded honest assessment of working conditions.”
Also see:
X.com: “New evidence directly implicates Volkswagen in forced labor”
“The SAIC-VW test track in Turpan was built using transferred ‘Uyghur laborers’ in military drill uniforms (see photo [shown above]).These findings…implicate a Volkswagen-controlled entity not only in activities aiding state atrocities but also in subjecting its own staff to forced labor, assimilation, surveillance and indoctrination.”
Jamestown.org: “An Assessment of the Audit of Volkswagen’s Controversial Factory in Xinjiang” (September 19, 2024)
“The audit shows that the factory organizes staff activities promoting ‘harmony’ of all ethnic groups. Such activities are associated with forced assimilation…. Auditors did not ask general staff about forced labor. Interviews with Uyghur and other staff were remotely monitored via live video link, permitting direct state surveillance. Interviewees’ anonymity was not preserved. In short, SA8000 guidelines for worker interviews were grossly violated.”
