Xinjiang Jiarun Aluminum / Xinjiang Jiarun Resources Holdings Co., Ltd.

Aluminum

Xinjiang Jiarun Resources Holdings Co., Ltd. was established in May 2011 with a registered capital of one billion yuan to smelt and alloy aluminum and produce coal power and carbon anodes. Jiarun is in Manas County of Changj prefecture, where its own industrial park (Jiarun Industrial Park) sits within the larger Tahe Industrial Park.

Jiarun’s aluminum is “transported to downstream enterprises across the country by rail… as raw materials for aerospace, automobiles, and high-end medical equipment.” Its ingots are “mainly” used in aviation equipment, car wheels, and household goods. State media announced in August 2022 that an aluminum wheel forging facility would be installed adjacent to Jiarun, equipped to consume 30,000 tons of aluminum alloy per year (3.75% of Jiarun’s annual production).

See Horizon Advisory, "Base Problem"

Further evidence of Jiarun labor transfers indicate that the company is a long-term and continuing participant in the repressive program. Jiarun’s involvement in “vocational training” and “poverty alleviation” work can be traced back to late 2016, when Jiarun and 10 other companies participated in vocational training of 615 individuals, all under the age of 30. The following year, Secretary of the Changji Autonomous Prefecture Party Committee Sharghat Aghan, took a research trip to Jiarun to “study the implementation of various decisions and arrangements for social stability and long-term stability.” Aghan personally met Jiarun’s 60 transferred surplus laborers from Hotan. Jiarun was still receiving new labor transfers in 2021 when Manas Country received two waves of surplus labor (110 and 149), and Jiarun participated in the hiring.  In a separate March 2021 “spring breeze jobs fair” Manas County expected Jiarun and five other companies to “absorb” 238 surplus laborers. Jiarun’s hiring manager described the company’s “recruitment needs” as “quite large,” noting that Jiarun sought to hire electrolyzers and firefighters to work in the sweltering pot rooms. In March 2022, at another “spring breeze job fair” Jiarun seems to have accepted 90 labor transfers.

The hazardous working conditions for these transferred workers are not paired with labor protections. Indigenous and minoritized workers hired through intermediary contractors (presumably the state, which signs their labor contracts), are not consider employees despite working at the factory. Jiarun kept plants operating during the height of the pandemic potentially risking employees’ well-being.