From Ürümchi to Paris and Brussels: The Spread of Uyghur Region Air Cargo Across Europe

November 24, 2025

A UHRP Insights column by Peter Irwin, Associate Director for Research and Advocacy

In July 2025, I warned in research with Henryk Szadziewski, UHRP Director of Research, about new air cargo connections between Ürümchi and European airports creating a direct channel for goods at high risk of being produced with state-imposed forced labor entering Western supply chains.

The current analysis, drawing on updated cargo flight data through October 2025, reinforces this finding and reveals a continued rise in cargo flights from a growing list of airlines landing in the UK and European Union, creating a direct trade corridor from a region where the Chinese government is perpetrating genocide and atrocity crimes, including the systematic exploitation of Uyghurs through state-imposed labor schemes.

This new analysis reveals that Ürümchi is now directly linked to France and Spain by air cargo, with the freight company CMA CGM Air Cargo¹ operating regular flights to Paris (CDG) since August 2025, and an additional direct route established to Lyon in October.² Flight tracking data also shows many of the direct flights to Paris continuing to Madrid, and even an indirect flight to Brussels in September.

Although the full contents of the air cargo remain unclear, reporting from Chinese state media provides some indication of what is being transported, and in more recent cases makes direct reference to goods identified as at high risk of being produced under forced labor conditions.

Chinese state media reporting on the new Paris and Madrid route noted that its inaugural flight on July 27 carried “57 tons of cross-border e-commerce goods.” Going further, a Chinese logistics firm boasted that this route will allow “French red wine and Xinjiang red dates to meet on the shelves.” Although not providing direct evidence of cargo contents, such a statement is concerning, especially given that research by Nuzigum Setiwaldi for UHRP in 2022 found that red dates produced in the Uyghur Region are at high risk of being produced with forced labor.

In August 2025, the interagency body created under the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to monitor enforcement of the law added red dates as a “high-priority sector” for enforcement. Such a designation indicates that entities in this sector have “a higher risk of forced labor” of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples from the Uyghur Region.

Another striking example of forced labor risks appears in a Chinese state media article from October on foreign trade development in the Uyghur Region. The article includes a photo of Chinese customs officials inspecting a stack of boxes containing cans of tomatoes produced by the Chinese company ChalkiS. An investigation by Adrian Zenz and I-Lin Lin from December 2024 documented how the company, a major exporter of tomato paste and tomato products, has benefited from forced labor, coercive land transfers, and the intrusive, state-enforced “Becoming Family” program.³ Tomatoes (and their downstream products) were added as a “high-priority sector” for enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act as the law took effect in June 2022.

Image 1: Chinese customs officials at Urumchi’s Tianshan International Airport inspect a “ChalkiS” shipment of tomatoes originating from the Uyghur Region. Source: https://archive.ph/btfrO.

Chinese state media have noted many other kinds of goods transported by air, including from additional sectors already documented as tainted by Uyghur forced labor, such as textiles,⁴ footwear,⁵ electronics,⁶ and agricultural products.⁷ In an announcement of a new route to Dubai in August, state media note that officials have outlined plans for additional air cargo services transporting fruits and vegetables, including tomato products from the Uyghur Region, to “Southeast Asia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Europe.”

In addition to specific sectors, state media consistently note that these new routes will facilitate the flow of e-commerce goods from the Uyghur Region into new markets. This is particularly concerning given the evidence that products from major Chinese e-commerce platforms, like Shein and Temu, are at high risk of being produced through state-imposed forced labor linked to the Uyghur Region.⁸ At a hearing in January 2025, a lawyer for Shein refused to answer questions about forced labor in the company’s supply chains from the UK Business and Trade Committee.⁹

The new direct route to Paris from Ürümchi also coincided with Shein opening its first physical store in early November inside one of Paris’ most iconic department stores, BHV Marais. The opening was marred by protests, and around the same time, French authorities announced they may block access to Shein’s online marketplace after France’s consumer watchdog discovered illegal weapons and sex dolls on the website.

Image 2: Inaugural CMA CGM Air Cargo flight departing Urumchi’s Tianshan International Airport on July 27, 2025. The banner reads: “Warmest congratulations on the successful maiden voyage of the Ürümchi Tianshan International Airport to Paris international cargo route!” Source: Tianshannet: https://archive.ph/x95Sf.

European Commission research shows a significant increase in the import of low value packages into the EU between 2022 and 2024.¹⁰ Transparency reports from Shein¹¹ and Temu¹² indicate that their user bases continue to grow across the continent, likely signalling a continued surge in packages. European airports that serve as major logistics hubs like Paris, Liège, and Leipzig have helped to facilitate this expansion, and UHRP’s earlier research has tracked new routes from Ürümchi to these airports in particular since mid-2024.

The direct route to Paris and the rise of e-commerce shipments through major European logistics hubs highlight how air cargo from the Uyghur Region is entering European markets, carrying a risk of products made with state-imposed forced labor. The Paris connection is part of a broader pattern: air cargo routes from the Uyghur Region are proliferating across the continent, linking new European destinations to supply chains tainted by forced labor.

New Destinations, Same Risks

An analysis of flight data from June to October 2025 also shows the introduction of regular indirect flights operated by YTO Cargo Airlines and My Freighter into Tallinn, Estonia, marking the emergence of a more regular connection from Ürümchi into northern Europe in recent months.

Other routes from Ürümchi to the UK and Europe have become more frequent or diversified. Flight data show over a dozen flights from Ürümchi to Birmingham since June, reflecting the growing volume of goods entering the UK market from the Uyghur Region. Data also show that a new UK carrier, One Air, operated two direct flights into the East Midlands Airport outside Nottingham.¹³ Chinese logistics firm iTours International Supply Chain referenced one of these flights on July 23, 2025, reporting that it carried “88 tons of daily necessities such as clothing and accessories.”

Flight data also show several cargo flights operated by Ethiopian Airlines landing in Brussels, after a stop in Addis Ababa, reflecting the reach of Uyghur Region goods into major European political centers. In another striking example, flight tracking data showed a Suparna Airlines flight landing in Anchorage, Alaska on July 24, 2025 after stops in Yerevan and Nanjing, illustrating the potential for goods from the Uyghur Region to be routed across continents.

Regular routes from the UK-based cargo companies Titan Airways and European Cargo continued apace, with upwards of six flights per week from each carrier into London, Bournemouth, and Cardiff. My Freighter continued consistent flights into Leipzig, Budapest, and Athens with a technical stopover in Tashkent; ROMCargo continued upwards of seven direct flights per week into Bucharest; and SF Airlines, a Chinese company, continued more sporadic indirect flights into Budapest.

Cargo routes also continue to operate from Ürümchi into Southeast Europe, including Serbia. In July, Chinese officials announced the creation of a new route from Ürümchi to Niš, noting that the agreement signed shared a commitment to “establish Niš Airport as a key cargo hub serving the entire Balkan region.”

Meanwhile, some carriers have ceased operations. GeoSky, in a response to a request for comment on our original research, said that due to commercial considerations, they “ceased operating flights to Ürümchi in April 2025 and have no plans to start operating flights to Ürümchi in the near future.” Similarly, the Georgian cargo carrier CAMEX appears to have halted its routes.

Institutionalizing the Air Silk Road

As noted in earlier research with Henryk Szadziewski, Manifest Risk, Chinese officials have aimed to turn the Ürümchi Airport into an international logistics hub, with cargo flights now reaching destinations across Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Africa. This expansion of cargo flight networks is part of China’s “Air Silk Road” strategy to integrate the Uyghur Region into global markets under the Belt and Road Initiative. In the first eight months of 2025, Chinese state media reported that international cargo throughput at the airport had a year-on-year increase of 370 percent.

Connected to these developments are government efforts to leverage the newly established “Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone” (FTZ), which encompasses areas in Horgos, Kashgar, and Ürümchi. The Ürümchi section of the FTZ is located close to the airport, and state media note that a recent surge in goods moving through the airport is partly a consequence of its development. By September 2025, state media reported that more than 18,000 new enterprises had been established across the pilot FTZ and that, in the first nine months of the year, the zone contributed 40 percent of the Uyghur Region’s total foreign trade volume.

The European Supply Chain at Risk

Taken together, these new developments since June 2025 illustrate a maturing logistics ecosystem built around Ürümchi’s role in China’s westward trade ambitions. Instead of tapering off under mounting international concern, cargo movements tied to the Uyghur Region are becoming more routine, geographically diverse, and strategically embedded across the European market.

For Europe, the implications are serious. While the EU has adopted a regulation addressing forced labor that will come into force in 2027, a multi-year gap exists during which forced labor tainted products, including those from the Uyghur Region, can continue entering the EU with little scrutiny. In that vacuum, the Uyghur Region is securing deeper commercial access to European markets, even as evidence of mass detention, coercive labor programs, and cultural eradication remains overwhelming.

Without clear origin-tracing requirements, dedicated enforcement capacity, and cooperation with like-minded partners, the EU risks allowing the infrastructure of repression to be quietly woven into its own supply chains.

As European dependence on these trade links deepens, Beijing gains additional leverage; an implicit bargain that promises access to cheap goods in exchange for political silence on Uyghur rights and other human rights abuses. In an era when tariff wars and rising production costs are reshaping global trade, this dynamic further strengthens China’s hand.

In contrast, the United States has shown through the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that rigorous enforcement can reshape supply chains. Europe’s test is whether it follows suit or continues to be a potentially permissive entry point for forced-labor-linked goods into global commerce.