Tesla has come under fire from US human rights groups after opening an office in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. The largest Muslim organization in the US accused the company on Tuesday of “supporting genocide”. “Elon Musk has to close the Tesla dealership in Xinjiang,” wrote the Council for American-Islamic Relations in the short message service Twitter.
A leading US trade association and US Senator Marco Rubio made similar statements. Tesla initially did not respond to the request for comment. The US government accuses China of genocide in the predominantly Uyghur province of Xinjiang and has therefore announced a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in February. According to this, there are also camps for forced labor and re-education in Xinjiang. China rejects the allegations. Tesla announced the opening of the exhibition rooms in the provincial capital Urumqi on Friday via the Chinese short message service Weibo.
Western companies are in a conflict because of the conflict: Many are trying to forego suppliers from the province in western China in order to evade US sanctions. But for that they get into trouble in China. For example, the Swedish clothing manufacturer H&M was the target of a boycott in July, which caused sales to collapse in the People’s Republic. The same thing happened to the US chip manufacturer Intel.
Source: Nachrichten
