Rare Earth Exchanges

Tesla’s Dependence on Forced Labor in China’s Xinjiang region-Critical Review of Last Year’s Washington Post Article

Leave a Comment

Highlights

  • Washington Post investigation exposes potential forced labor links in EV supply chains, particularly involving Chinese manufacturers.
  • Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai represents 40% of its vehicle sales, highlighting deep economic interconnectedness with China.
  • U.S. legislation like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act aims to address human rights concerns in global EV material sourcing.

Evan Halper’s eye-opening Washington Post article (opens in a new tab) in September of last year investigates the opaque supply chains behind the electric vehicle (EV) industry, with a specific focus on Tesla and other automakers’ reliance on China.  Assuming all is accurate, it raises some irony given Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration with talks of tariffs and trade war with China.  The piece highlights growing concerns about potential links to forced labor in the Xinjiang region, a pressing issue as U.S. law bars imports from Xinjiang due to human rights abuses against Uyghurs. In November, more companies were added to the list, according to a Reuters account (opens in a new tab). Despite Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai being central to its supply and market strategy—selling 40% of its vehicles in China—questions arise about the ethical and legal implications of sourcing materials. Halper’s investigation utilized extensive research, including financial disclosures and contracts, to trace the connections between Chinese suppliers and the global EV market.

Critical Review

While the article Rare Earth Exchanges highlights Tesla and others’ reliance on China, it does not fully address how realistic it is for automakers to immediately overhaul supply chains in an industry so deeply tied to Chinese processing and materials.  If entire sectors are organized in a particular way, it takes more than some legislation to turn that around.

Also, Halper may have easily made some assumptions about alternatives. The author implies in the article that diversifying supply chains is both urgent and feasible but does not examine the significant cost, infrastructure, and timeline required for alternative sources to match China’s scale.  What if doing so would send American society into a full recession, if not worse?

The article exhibits the mounting American society-wide bias against China. The bias starts at the top rungs of society, with what is, in reality, many of the same elites that were in charge in many cases as China made the investments to control much of the rare earth sector, which was all too convenient in a global trade paradigm.

While the focus on forced labor and human rights abuses is crucial, the article may downplay the broader global complicity in maintaining demand for affordable EVs, which indirectly sustains these problematic supply chains.

The enforcement of U.S. laws like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (opens in a new tab) is presented as a moral imperative, but the article does not explore potential unintended consequences, such as higher EV costs or slowed adoption of clean energy technologies. 

The investigation raises essential questions about the ethical dimensions of EV supply chains but assumes that automakers can rapidly extricate themselves from dependence on China without significant disruption to clean energy goals. A more nuanced discussion of the trade-offs between accelerating EV adoption and addressing supply chain ethics would better balance the narrative.

Spread the word: