Located in the western suburbs of Urumqi, the factory had become a classic case of commercial sensitivity for Western brands in China. Volkswagen finally announced, on Wednesday, November 27, the sale of its industrial center in the capital of Xinjiang, as well as a vehicle test track in a desert area, 240 kilometers away, in this region known for the repression of the Uyghur minority.
The German giant inaugurated the Urumqi industrial park in 2013, backed by the Chinese partner with whom the legislation required it to operate, the Shanghai state automobile group SAIC, to assemble a model then a symbol of a certain social status, the Santana. The presence of Western production lines in this area of far western China has become difficult to defend, after a massive system of internment camps was established starting in 2016.
Probably one million members of the region’s Muslim minorities were sent there as part of a systematic indoctrination policy in response to a series of terrorist attacks. The use of forced labor to leave no possibility of leisure, after the internment phase for re-education, has further complicated the equation for the companies present on the site.
In 2019, the evolution of the market led Volkswagen to suspend assembly at this plant to dedicate it to technical tests, increasing the workforce from 650 employees to 197. That same year, the South German Zeitung revealed a “good neighbor agreement” with the policy that foresees “patriotic training” and a “military training” to factory workers, which employed a quarter of Uyghurs. The Wolfsburg group was the largest multinational in the area, it was criticized by rights defense associations and by the exiled Uyghur community for having commissioned a social audit that only looked superficially to conclude that there were no problems.
Ideological sessions before working hours
Then, in February 2024, an investigation by the researcher behind a significant part of the revelations about the situation in Xinjiang, Adrian Zenz, published in the economic daily HandelsblattHe told how the subcontractor transferred Uyghurs from the south of the region to the construction sites of the immense test track, near the city of Tourfan, under the pretext of a poverty eradication policy. They appeared there in military uniforms, in 2017 and 2018, in the midst of repression, with ideological sessions before work hours.
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