Thread by @JimMillward

1. CCP Uyghur and Corona crises converge! (thread /sources): as many feared, China's and world supply chains now extensively tainted by Uyghur internment camps and forced labor program. California implicated with @GavinNewsom 's huge N95 mask deal bit.ly/3bOVT3H

2. BYD, a major tech company (usually makes batteries and mass transit vehicles) is the first foreign company to get FDA approval for KN95 and surgical masks. CA closed a $1 billion deal with BYD. This puts CA just two degrees of separation away from coerced Uyghur labor.

3. One of BYD's suppliers in PRC, Hubei Yihong Precision Manufacturing, uses Uyghur labor transferred from south Xinjiang where mandatory low/unpaid labor follows years of "educational transformation" in concentration camps. aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs…

Coercion in Uyghur transfer labor program and links to 83 major Chinese and international companies is well documented in Australian Strategic Policy Institute's report with @xu_xiuzhong and @jleibold

4. The transfer of Uyghurs from concentration camps to labor in factory compounds in Xinjiang and rest of China detailed by Adrian Zenz and others foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/11/cot…

5. Deep pockets BYD now harassment-suing @VICE news, but the story is straight—Vice just relaying info in ASPI report (data-driven, fully sourced) as well as US govt's other prohibitions against deals with BYD. bit.ly/3f3aCd3

6. #BYD could better use its money doing due diligence to avoid coerced Uyghur labor and Xinjiang in ALL subsidiaries and suppliers, incl bingtuan, as should other firms that hope to sell on global markets. Petulant harassment of media will only further hurt BYD's reputation

7. Tough moral choice for CA and @GavinNewsom. You need the masks. But how close is too close to concentration camps and unfree labor? This is not a right-wing China-bashing conspiracy, but a rights atrocity covered by mainstr media and @hrw for years. You have to also think

8. about the example you set--by dealing with a company that supplies from Hubei Yihong --prominently featured in the ASPI report--CA would give cover to many others who want to deal with tainted Chinese companies

9. while to CANCEL deal with BYD because of links to Xinjiang's concentration camps, Uyghur forced labor, and CCP oppression and cultural genocide; that would be the clearest, strongest step any western entity has taken to help Xinjiang's indigenous peoples. It would show PRC

10. the huge economic cost of its disastrous Xinjiang policies that center on collective punishment of millions of innocent Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other indigenous peoples in Xinjiang. END