The Sydney Morning Herald 
June 28, 2021

A billion-dollar train deal between Western Australia and manufacturing giant Alstom is the latest government contract in Australia to face scrutiny for its use of Chinese suppliers linked to exploited Uighur workers.

It comes weeks after revelations Melbourne’s transport authority advised the Victorian government to continue buying parts from a contractor using Muslim workers to avoid additional costs and delays in its $2.4 billion train project.

However, Alstom is adamant its supply chain is free of exploitation and has updated its contracts with suppliers and contractors to include modern slavery clauses.

The McGowan government signed a $1.3 billion contract with Alstom to build and maintain Perth’s next fleet of trains in December 2019 in what was hailed as a milestone for its flagship Metronet project.

It has since been revealed the French multinational will build the network’s C-Series railcars using parts produced by a Chinese firm which sourced workers from Xinjiang through a controversial government program to re-educate minorities.

KTK Group is a major supplier of train fittings headquartered in Changzhou, near Shanghai, and supplies parts to projects in Victoria, NSW, and Queensland.

The company was blacklisted by the US Commerce Department last year for its role in China’s “campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labour, and high technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs and other members of Muslim minority groups”.

In correspondence with Bombardier, another train manufacturer that has since merged with Alstom – obtained by WAtoday under Freedom of Information laws – KTK confirmed it had employed almost 80 workers from Nilka province in Xinjiang between 2018 and 2019 for its factory in Jiangsu, about 4000 kilometres away, through Beijing’s Xinjiang Aid program.

The Nilka County is situated within the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and is largely made up of Kazakhs, who are also a persecuted minority group. The Australian Strategic Policy Instituted reported that the Chinese government’s “re-education” policies have mainly targeted the Uighurs but also other Turkic speaking Muslim minorities such as the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tartars, Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Hui.

But it claimed the workers had voluntarily signed contracts that complied with China’s labour laws.

“KTK has employed one dedicated cook in order to respect and satisfy the tradition of Muslim food and provided new decorated dormitories to them free of charge,” the supplier said.

The number of workers from Xinjiang currently employed by KTK is unclear and the company did not respond to requests for comment from this masthead.