China is intensifying its exploitation of Uyghur people in Xinjiang to maintain control over global mineral supply chains. “The system of coercive labor allocation applied to minority communities in Xinjiang will continue under the 15th five-year Plan," a study authored by Uyghur researcher Nyrola Elimä Global Rights Compliance (GRC), an international NGO, and directed by Samir Goswami, finds.

“China’ s plans to dominate semiconductors, clean energy, and artificial intelligence are all dependent in part on Xinjiang – for both its critical minerals, and the cheap, repressed forced labor used to extract them,"

Here is the full report: Strangling Supply, Exploiting Labor: Inside China’s Five-Year Plan in Xinjiang (pdf)

Among the report’s key findings:

• China’s goals in semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing all depend on upstream raw materials, and Xinjiang is being deliberately positioned to supply them.
• The Plan aims to concentrate industrial development and employment absorption in southern Xinjiang – the area with the highest Uyghur population density and the most extensively documented record of forced labour. Every policy applied to Xinjiang, such as employment, economic development, education, culture, becomes an instrument of social control and ideological re - engineering.
• Industrial electricity in Xinjiang costs about 2.7 cents per kWh, far below roughly 7.5 cents in the U.S. and 22 cents in the EU. Given that power accounts for 40 to 60 % of processing costs for materials like titanium, magnesium, and lithium, this price d isparity creates a significant competitive barrier for Western producers.
• Advanced technology systems, including U.S. military capabilities and AI, are heavily dependent on Chinese lithium - ion batteries, much of which rely on raw materials including lithium and graphite, sourcing from Xinjiang., China holds a strategic lever ove r these critical technologies - and they can’t dominate this production without exploiting the labor of Uyghur people.
• The 15th Five - Year Plan will accelerate close monitoring, surveillance and re-intervention for Uyghurs who refuse to participate will continue throughout the 2026 to 2030 period.
• The CCP also adopted the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which pursues assimilation practices for ethnic minorities to strengthen the “cohesion” of Chinese culture and identity. When combined with the industrial ambitions of the Five-Year Plan, this Law facilitates the continued eradication of Uyghur identity and culture alongside the strategic resource exploitation of their homelands.

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