The US Senate on Wednesday passed legislation banning the import of any products from China's Xinjiang region, the latest effort by Washington to punish Beijing for what it says is an ongoing genocide against Uighurs and other Muslim groups.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a "presumption" that goods produced in Xinjiang are forced-production, and thus prohibited under the Tariff Act of 1930, unless authorized by US authorities.
The bipartisan legislation, passed unanimously by the Senate, would shift the burden of proof on importers.
Existing laws prohibit goods if there is reasonable evidence that they were produced under forced labor.
The bill must also be approved by the House of Representatives before it is sent to the White House for President Joe Biden's ratification, and it is not clear when that might happen.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the legislation with Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, called on the House of Representatives to act quickly.
"We will not turn a blind eye to the ongoing crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party, and we will not allow companies to profit from these horrific abuses," Rubio said in a statement.
"No American company should profit from these abuses, and no American consumer should inadvertently purchase forced-made goods," Merkley said.
Democratic and Republican aides said they expected the measure to have strong support in the House of Representatives, noting that the House passed a similar measure almost unanimously last year.
The Biden administration increased sanctions and on Tuesday issued a warning to companies that they may violate US laws if their operations are linked, even indirectly, to surveillance networks in Xinjiang.
Human rights organizations accuse China of detaining up to one million Uighur Muslims, whose total number is close to 11 million, in detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017, subjecting those who have not been detained to intense monitoring, as well as imposing religious restrictions on them, and exploiting them in forced labor.
China categorically denies this, and says that these camps are "vocational training centers" aimed at removing the population from religious extremism and separatism after Uighurs committed several bloody attacks against civilians.
Biden had backed former President Trump's signature on legislation, passed with overwhelming congressional support in June 2020, that would allow sanctions against any Chinese official involved in the suppression of the Uighurs, as well as sanctions against Chinese government officials for "serious human rights abuses" against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.