The U.S. is poised to bar some solar products made in China’s Xinjiang region, according to several people familiar with the matter, marking one of the Biden administration’s biggest steps yet to counter alleged human rights abuses against China’s ethnic Uyghur Muslim minority.
Factories in Xinjiang — where advocacy groups and a panel of United Nations experts say Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been subjected to human-rights abuses and forced to work against their will — produce roughly half of global supply of polysilicon, a material critical for solar panels and semiconductors. China has denied the allegations, saying they’re an attempt to undermine successful businesses.
The move, which is expected to be announced Thursday, has implications for solar’s supply chain and could force U.S. companies to find material elsewhere. It comes after both the Trump and Biden administrations accused China of "genocide” in a campaign to erase the culture of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs.