Following a comprehensive four-year investigation conducted by reporter Ian Urbina’s Outlaw Ocean Project, certain U.S. lawmakers are pushing for increased restrictions on seafood imports from China. The investigation exposed severe human rights abuses within China’s fishing industry, with a particular focus on the operations of the Chinese fishing vessel Zhen Fa 7.
Major American grocery stores, restaurant chains, and food service companies are implicated in receiving substantial volumes of seafood from Zhen Fa 7, where workers endured extremely harsh and sometimes deadly conditions. The probe, documented in the New Yorker, revealed that processing plants in China’s Shandong province utilized Uyghurs from labor camps in Xinjiang and North Korean laborers. The estimated export of “at least forty-seven thousand tons of seafood, including some seventeen per cent of all squid sent to the U.S.,” has raised concerns as these shipments reached entities supplying military bases and school cafeterias.
The findings have garnered attention from policymakers in Washington. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan body monitoring alleged human rights abuses in China, is set to conduct a hearing with Urbina on October 24 to delve into his discoveries. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., the commission’s chair, emphasized the need for immediate action: “All seafood imports processed by Uyghurs and North Koreans must stop immediately — that is the law. But everyone from big grocery chains to the U.S. government must provide an answer to why their seafood supply-chains support modern slavery.”
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, enacted in 2021, prohibits American imports of goods made with forced labour in China, focusing on Xinjiang. A separate law from 2017 restricts goods produced with North Korean forced labour. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chair of the House select committee on China, urged the U.S. government to expand sanctions on Chinese firms engaged in illegal fishing practices and to “suspend imports of tainted Chinese seafood products.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., Gallagher’s Democratic counterpart on the China select committee, emphasized the need for stricter enforcement of import laws, stating that if China wants to sell to U.S. markets, they must adhere to established rules.
Source: SEMAFOR
Image Credit: Chen Yongjian
