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From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Centre for China Studies has berated the United States over its recent signing of the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act.
The Director, Centre for China Studies, Mr Charles Onunaiju, while briefing journalists in Abuja, said the so-called Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which the U.S hegemonic circles have signed into law on December 23, 2021, is a piece of fabrication and outright provocation designed to stoke international tension.
“For the Chinese and their government, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the signed U.S extraterritorial law is ‘a rock they are lifting which will end up dropping on their feet.’
“As a research centre, the facts we have gathered showed that the insinuations and innuendoes, contained in the so-called ‘Forced Labour Prevention Act’ was pure political slander,” Onunaiju said.
Onunaiju further said the facts were that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, from 2014 to 2020, the number of employed persons in the region has risen from 11.35 million to 13.56 million, an increase of 19.4 per cent.
“We found out that as a routine, the authorities of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region dutifully apply the country’s policy requirement on establishing a dynamic salary growth mechanism for employees in enterprises and improve accordingly the salary guidance system for enterprises and for the labour market. The Xinjiang Autonomous Region has fully implemented the China national plan to ensure access to Social Security.
“Workers in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and other key groups, including migrant workers, the self-employed and people engaged in a new form of business are encouraged to access the Social insurance scheme. By the end of 2019, more than 22 million people were participating in basic pension, unemployment and work-related injury insurance.
“The point we have made clear is that U.S ‘Ugyher Forced Labour Prevention Act’ which target enterprises will only disrupt the global supply chain, which has already been made fragile by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nigeria and Africa have a moral duty to speak up against political slander of a major country and partner in the Global South and whose development trajectory, has impacted positively in both Africa and Nigeria, but which stirs paranoid in the hegemonic circles in the West,” Onunaiju added.
Onunaiju also said China is entitled to her comprehensive and inclusive development, calling on the United States to immediately abrogate the obnoxious law.
“We call on the U.S ruling circles for the sake of preserving international order, underpinned by international law, to immediately abrogate the obnoxious law, which in reality has no practical effect and will do nothing to affect China’s development and its region of Xinjiang, but will foul the international political ecosystem and make it more fraught with uncertainty and recriminations,” Onunaiju concluded.
