“The entire Belt and Road initiative is based on forced labor,” according to Li Qiang, director of China Labor Watch. “Chinese authorities want the Belt and Road projects for political gain and need to use these workers.”
A new report, “Silent Victims of Labor Trafficking: China’s Belt and Road workers stranded overseas amid Covid-19 pandemic” by China Labor Watch, published on April 30, details the conditions of some of those overseas Chinese workers, who are building China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects across the world. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forms a crucial part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) foreign policy and is a key tool in China’s ambition to become a global superpower.
