German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces an embarrassing revolt against her China trade policy. While Merkel wants to conclude a massive European Union-China trade deal imminently, a rising chorus of voices is obstructing the agreement.

Their concern is clear: The EU cannot give China the political and economic benefits of a trade deal if Beijing continues to wage an ethnocidal campaign against its own people. EU officials close to Merkel had been confident that an agreement was near. But their hopes are now being dashed amid concerns about the deal that have been raised by the incoming Biden administration and an EU parliamentary vote that demanded that no deal be ratified without addressing forced labor concerns. Those concerns situate most specifically on China’s use of its Uighur minority population as de facto slave labor.