The government is almost guaranteed to have been delighted with the move and a large part of the Chinese population welcomed it, but Tesla was criticized intensely in the west for it on Tuesday: On New Year’s Eve, the company opened a showroom in the Xinjiang region with festive pictures and words The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported first, and expressed sympathy for them with hearts on posters. But reports have shown that there are massive human rights violations by Uyghurs and other minorities – the United Nations and other organizations see the line for genocide being crossed.
Tesla criticism from associations and senators
Like other Western companies with a presence or activity there before, Tesla was therefore a target of criticism because of the showroom opening in Xinjiang. Because the topic is highly political and, among other things, the reason why the USA wants to diplomatically boycott the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in February. US President Joe Biden signed a law at the end of 2021 according to which all products from the region are considered to have been made under forced labor, unless otherwise proven.
If you consider that, for example, Volkswagen operates a factory in the region (and at that according to the WSJ states that the company’s own supply chain is free of forced labor), the new Tesla showroom is comparatively insignificant in this picture. Nevertheless, after the news of the opening, the large Muslim association Council on American-Islamic Relations, among others, spoke up and called for the representation in the capital Urumqi to be closed again. On Twitter, Tesla was also criticized by a US trade association and by Senator Marco Rubio.
Right after President Biden signed Sen. Rubio’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law, @Tesla opened a store in #Xinjiang. Nationless corporations are helping the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide and slave labor in the region. https://t.co/2yWBTQSLbM
— Senator Rubio Press (@SenRubioPress) January 3, 2022
Stateless corporations would help the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang, the senator wrote, referring to Tesla. Some Twitter followers of CEO Elon Musk were also dissatisfied with the decision, while others defended it as an asset for the local population. The state publication Global Times in turn published one Video commentary in English, in which the current criticism of Tesla (as well as previous ones) is remarkably openly addressed. In addition, the commentator predicts future conflicts for companies operating in the US and China – the US would exert more political pressure and China would respond with retaliation.
Musk creates a good mood in China
So far, Tesla seems to have been affected by the political tensions between the country in which it was founded and has its headquarters and the in which it has produced more electric cars since the last quarter than at home, not to have been permanently impaired. But of course there is no guarantee that it will stay that way. However, CEO Musk is clearly making an effort to ensure this. At first he did not take part in the Xinjiang discussions on Twitter, where he defends himself and Tesla vehemently in attacks like Rubio’s. And last year the Tesla boss dressed unusually neatly several times as a video guest at conferences in China, where he attested to tremendous economic progress and prospects for the country and the strongest electric car industry in the world.