Ningbo Joyson Electronics Co., Ltd.

Safety systems, control systems

Ningbo Joyson Electronics Co., Ltd. (also known as Joyson Safety Systems, Key Safety Systems) is headquartered Zhejiang Province and employs over forty thousand people across thirty different countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Ningbo Joyson Electronics Co produces two different lines of products: electronic automotive central control systems and automotive safety systems (some of which are electronic). Joyson Automotive Safety Systems (Jingzhou) Co., Ltd.  is one of the over 100 subsidiaries of Joyson Ningbo Electronics. The subsidiary is located in Hubei Province and produces air bags, seat belts, steering wheels, and their respective components. Joyson took control of this factory in 2018, when it acquired Japan’s Takata Corp, which had gone bankrupt after it suffered from an international scandal because of its production of faulty safety equipment that led to consumer deaths and massive product recalls. Since that time, Joyson claims that its safety system branch has become a “global leader” in automotive safety systems supplying domestic and international brands.

Furthermore, Joyson has won “excellent supplier” awards from Porsche, Volkswagen, and General Motors. In 2011, according to its corporate annual reports and corporate website, the company purchased QUIN from Germany and these enterprises became wholly owned subsidiaries. That Joyson holding supplies 51% of Tesla’s airbags, seatbelts, steering wheels, battery management systems and related sensors. Tesla alone accounted for CNY 2 billion (US$252.73 million) of Joyson’s revenue in 2019.

Joyson does not have manufacturing facilities in the Uyghur Region. However, it is Joyson’s Jingzhou safety systems plant that could potentially be related to the Uyghur labor transfers. A September 2021 article published by the United Front Work Department of the Jingzhou Municipal Committee of the CCP indicated that Joyson Safety Systems is a company with a “a concentration of migrant workers from Xinjiang” from “ethnic minorities.” Employing Uyghur workers is not in and of itself a problem if recruitment is fair and open and employees have equitable arrangements and the ability to leave their jobs. However, the United Front’s monitoring of the migrant laborers’ situation at Joyson raises concern because in 2018, Yuan Defang, head of the United Front Work Department of Jingzhou, stated that taking in Xinjiang Uyghur workers was “a ‘political task’ for police, educators, bureaucrats, and cadres." And 2018 policies indicate that the transferred workers would be required to do three days of language and culture classes a week after work hours. The United Front is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party tasked with influencing the activities of groups outside the party, including religious communities, minority ethnic groups, and non-Chinese organizations abroad. It is a propaganda and bureaucratic that often exercises substantial power over the rights and experiences of non-CCP members and marginalized groups.