U.K. Applauded for Ban on Chinese Solar Panels Linked to Forced Labor

Human rights groups believe that China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will in “re-education camps”. There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in the northwest Xinjiang region. (Photo from Mathkind)

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An international energy expert praised Britain for its refusal to use solar panels, which are linked to suspected forced labor in China, in its new state-owned energy company.

After weeks of debate, Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, took an apparent U-turn on the issue, reported BBC News (April 23). He plans to introduce an amendment to legislation to ensure that there is no forced labor in Great British Energy’s supply chains.

“I really salute the U.K. government’s decision,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, which was founded in 1974, after the previous year's oil crisis, to avoid future shocks by helping to ensure reliable energy supplies, promote energy efficiency, and encourage technological research and innovation.

Fatih Birol, a Turkish economist who was on the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people in 2021, stressed the importance of green technology materials, but the chair of the World Economic Forum (Davos) Energy Advisory Board emphasized that the materials “should really be produced in a socially and environmentally acceptable way”.

China denies any abuses and a foreign ministry spokesperson said in February that allegations of forced labor were among the “lies of the century”, reported Reuters (April 23). The Chinese Embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment on April 23.

China dominates the renewables market. It produces more than 80 percent of the world’s solar panels, reported Reuters. As much as 50 percent of the world’s supply of polysilicon -- a key component in solar panels – comes from the Xinjiang region, which has been linked to the alleged exploitation of Uyghur (pronounced WEE-goor) Muslims, according to the BBC.

The United Kingdom imports more than 40 percent of its solar panels from China, according to His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs data.

Britain’s goal is to decarbonize largely its electricity sector by 2030. It will require a huge increase in renewable electricity, including an estimated tripling of solar power capacity.

Great British Energy, created in July 2024, is a publicly owned energy company, backed with 8.3 billion pounds, whose “mission is to power Britain with clean, secure home-grown energy and to become a global leader in clean energy”, according to its website. It will be established formally when the Great British Energy Bill is passed by Parliament, reported Euro News (April 23).

"GB Energy should Be an Industry Leader"

Not everyone agreed with the decision of the energy secretary.

Acting Conservative shadow secretary Andrew Bowie said that the amendment was a “humiliating U-turn from Ed Miliband”, reported the BBC.

In a post on X, he said that the decision was a “major blow” for the government’s goals on increasing renewable power.

However, trade association Solar Energy UK said the legislative change will not threaten Britain’s ability to meet its 2030 net zero goals, reported Reuters (April 23). Also, Ed Miliband insisted that Britain is “absolutely able to meet our net-zero targets”, reported Politico (April 24).

“We already know that there are factories (in China) which produce five times more than all the solar panels in the U.K. that are independently certified as not using slave labor under the initiative of the solar industry,” Miliband told the BBC, alluding to a Solar Stewardship Initiative scheme created by industry group Solar Energy UK and its European Union counterpart in 2021, reported Politico.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader who has long campaigned for a tougher U.K. stance on China, said that the government would have faced a large rebellion if it had not agreed to introduce the change.

“I hope and believe they are now seeing sense and realize it is a terrible situation to allow products which have been produced by slave labor,” Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a senior Conservative backbencher, told the BBC.

Dozens of Labor Members of Parliament abstained in a vote on the amendment when the Great British Energy Bill was in the House of Lords.

A government source told the BBC that, since then, “there has been an acknowledgement of the argument that GB Energy should be an industry leader”.

“Unfortunately, there’s a problem right the way throughout the renewables sector with state-imposed forced labor in China,” Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.

“They have labor transfer schemes where the government conscripts, very often ethnic minorities, and forces them to work against their will and, sadly, many such workers are placed within renewable industry in China.”

EU, US Already Ban Forced-Labor Products

With closer trading relations with China, experts warned that, without stricter U.K. laws, more goods potentially tainted by forced labor could flood into Britain because of the laws of other countries, reported Politico (April 24).

The European Union voted in 2024 for stricter rules banning products, where there were human rights risks from entering the 27-member bloc. Also, the United States passed laws in 2021 barring imports of goods made “wholly or in part with forced labor” – especially from Xinjiang.

The government's amendment is "a start", said Sir Iain Duncan Smith. "It's narrow because it's aimed only at GB Energy. What I would want from them is an absolute commitment across all imports coming into the U.K."

The final wording of the amended legislation will need to be agreed by both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law, reported Reuters.

“Dirt Cheap” Chinese Solar Panels

Buying Chinese solar panels is “dirt cheap”, argued Adam Bell, former head of energy strategy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and now the director of policy at Stonehaven consulting.

In 2023, China’s solar panel costs fell 42 percent from the previous year, reported Reuters (December 14, 2023). Its production cost dropped to 15 cents per watt, more than 60 percent below the U.S. price of 40 cents per watt. Europe’s production cost stood at 30 cents per watt, while India’s was at 22 cents per watt, according to the consultancy firm, Wood Mackenzie, reported Reuters.

"(Government leaders) should be prioritizing the fact that if they are going to go with clean energy, they need to have clean hands when it comes to slave labor," said Sir Iain Duncan Smith, according to Politico.

Lord David Alton, chair of the Joint Committee for Human Rights, echoed the indisputable obligation for moral conduct.

“We shouldn’t be building public procurement policy, including energy transition, on the broken backs of slave labor.”

Untransparent Supply Chains

Yet, supply chains are becoming more difficult to trace, said Laura Murphy, author of academic research on this issue and now senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Chinese companies are becoming more reluctant to name their suppliers, and the U.K. has no rule requiring shipping records to be made public.

In addition, polysilicon from Xinjiang often is melted down alongside other raw materials outside the region, experts say, making it hard to trace whether components were produced using slave labor.

“Opportunities for government contracts are a good incentive for companies to do the right thing,” Murphy said of the amendment. However, ministers must “find a way to robustly monitor that work and create a mechanism for excluding companies that are found lacking.”

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Satellite images show expansion of camps in Xinjiang region, near Dabancheng, one of seven urban districts of Xinjiang's capital city, Urumqi (From BBC News, May 24, 2022)

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“Re-education Camps”

Human rights groups believe that China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will during the past few years in a large network of what the government calls “re-education camps”, according to BBC News (May 24, 2022).

A series of police files obtained by the BBC in 2022 revealed details of China’s use of these camps and described the routine use of armed officers and the existence of a shoot-to-kill policy for those trying to make their escape.

Britain, the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands are among several countries to have accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published reports accusing China of crimes against humanity.

The declarations followed reports that, as well as interning Uyghurs in camps, China has been forcibly mass sterilizing Uyghur women to suppress the population, separating children from their families and attempting to break cultural traditions.

China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. After the publication of the Xinjiang police files, the Chinese government said the peace and prosperity brought to Xinjiang due to its anti-terrorist measures were the best response to “all sorts of lies”.

There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in northwest Xinjiang. The Uyghurs are one of China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities, according to Ethnic China: Identity, Assimilation and Resistance (2015). They make up less than half of the Xinjiang population, according to BBC News (May 24, 2022).

China also has been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region as well as destroying mosques and tombs.

The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and view themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations.

Recent decades have seen a mass migration of Han Chinese, China’s ethnic majority, into Xinjiang, allegedly orchestrated by the state to dilute the minority population there.

Uyghur activists say that they fear that the group’s culture and survival are under threat, reported BBC News (May 24, 2022).