NE Dallas News

U.S. Representative Colin Allred (D-TX) stressed the importance of maintaining a healthy trade relationship with China while holding it accountable for alleged human rights abuses and regional aggression in a tweet published on July 7.

"China is our largest trading partner and our biggest competitor," Allred wrote. "It's critical that we recognize that while also ensuring we hold China accountable for human rights abuses and increasing aggression in the region."

The tweet also featured a video of a clip taken from his recent interview with MSNBC. Allred discussed topics including trade relations with China, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) human rights violations and aggression, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's trip to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and other officials. According to CNN, the purpose of the trip was to discuss the economic relationship between the U.S. and China.

"I'm very concerned with some of the Chinese aggression there, and of course, with many of their human rights violations," Allred said in his interview. "But we have to keep that in mind also with the fact that they're our third-largest trading partner, the second-largest economy in the world. And then we have to find a way to compete with them, to win that competition, but to do so, I think in a way that doesn't irreparably harm our economy or the global economy. And so, I think that's what this administration is trying to do."

On June 8, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul published a statement regarding reports of China's intent to launch a spy operation based in Cuba targeting the U.S.

“In just the last few months a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spy balloon has traversed the U.S., a CCP military ship cut off a U.S. military ship in the Taiwan Strait, and the CCP banned Micron in China and raided other American companies," McCaul wrote. "The CCP is now escalating their aggressive behavior by setting up a spy base 90 miles from America’s shores in Cuba. It is extremely shameful the Biden administration continues begging the CCP for talks while the CCP’s malign actions speak for themselves.”

According to Human Rights Watch, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect on June 21, 2022, giving U.S. authorities additional powers to block the import of goods linked to forced labor in China. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have been accused of committing crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the northwest Xinjiang region, detaining as many as one million people and subjecting them to forced labor.

“The new US law means it’s no longer business as usual for companies profiting from forced labor in China, and Xinjiang especially,” said Jim Wormington, senior researcher and advocate for corporate accountability at Human Rights Watch. “Companies should swiftly identify any supply chain links to Xinjiang and exit the region or risk violating US law and seeing their goods detained at the US border.”