Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2021. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
Intel late last year issued a routine open letter to suppliers containing a reasonable request: avoid sourcing from Xinjiang, the Chinese region in which President Xi Jinping’s administration is conducting a cultural genocide against the resident Uyghur Muslim population. What happened next, however, wasn’t reasonable at all. Intel said it was sorry.
The Wall Street Journal reported this month that the U.S. semiconductor company has erased all references to Xinjiang from the open letter on its website, after the note spurred backlash on Chinese state-run media and social media. The letter stated only that governments such as the United States’, outraged at the Uyghurs’ treatment, had imposed restrictions forbidding Intel from sourcing goods or services from the region. There was no explanation why — the mass surveillance, draconian birth restrictions and forced labor the Chinese government has imposed on the Uyghur minority. Yet the mere mention of the territory was, evidently, too much honesty to bear for the architects of this fear campaign. Under pressure, including the withdrawal of a popular Chinese brand ambassador, Intel issued a statement: “We deeply apologize for the confusion caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners and the public.”
The only thing to apologize for is apologizing. Intel is helping the Chinese state lie to the world and to its own citizens — many of whom, reared on a poisonous combination of propaganda and censorship, exploded in anger at the letter. Intel vets its business partners to steer its supply chain clear of Xinjiang; its general counsel said as much at a congressional hearing last summer. But to ask the company, its refusal to be complicit in human rights abuses is more obligation than point of pride. This month, Intel said its now-scrubbed letter was issued only to comply with U.S. law. (The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which President Biden signed into law last month, requires proof that imports from the region haven’t been made with forced labor.) The missive did not, the company insisted, represent its position on Xinjiang.
What, then, is Intel’s position on forced religious assimilation? The company’s continued sponsorship of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing invites the same question.
Intel has been a vocal supporter of the Innovation and Competition Act, which the House is considering. The bill includes tens of billions of dollars to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry — helping the United States keep its technological advantage over China, and democracy its edge over autocracy. Intel might argue that the proposed subsidies would lessen its dependence on China, which demands that the company compromise on this country’s values. But it is hard to see Intel as the United States’ national champion when it bows so obsequiously to China’s noxious, repressive regime.
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