A video of surveillance footage from the Chinese-owned Lingolong Tire factory in Zrenjanin, Serbia, that shows a physical altercation between a worker and his alleged Chinese superior, has been circulating the Serbian social media and news portals. The video was also shared by former MP Đorđe Miketić from the Belgrade Remains Initiative.
A link to the YouTube video of it.
Last week, on December 18th, US Customs and Border Protection issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) against automobile tires manufactured in Serbia by Linglong International Europe D.O.O. Zrenjanin, due to evidence reasonably indicating the use of forced labor in their production.
This WRO, the fifth in 2025 and the second in Fiscal Year 2026, was issued due to violations of the US law prohibiting goods made with forced labor from entering the United States. When CBP has evidence indicating that imported goods are made by forced labor, the agency acts to detain those shipments through WROs.
The evidence demonstrated that workers at Linglong are subject to nine International Labour Organization indicators of forced labor: retention of identity documents, intimidation and threats, isolation, excessive overtime, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive living and working conditions, deception, and abuse of vulnerability, the US CBP media release stated.
Balkan Insight wrote that
Munich-based MAN Truck & Bus, a subsidiary of Volkswagen-owned commercial vehicle manufacturer Traton, has ended a tyre supply deal with the Serbian plant of Chinese Shandong Linglong Tire Co., citing allegations of “human rights violations” in reports on working conditions at the plant, BIRN and Manager Magazin can reveal.
In cooperation with anti-trafficking organisation ASTRA and the Serbia-based Initiative for Economic and Social Rights, A11, BIRN has reported extensively since 2021 on the exploitation of Vietnamese and Indian workers at the Linglong site in Serbia, which is key to the Chinese company’s European ambitions.
The allegations included a raft of Labour Law violations, the confiscation of passports, and cramped, dirty, unsanitary accommodation.
Linglong has denied any wrongdoing.
Serbia has faced calls from the European Parliament and United Nations human rights rapporteurs to investigate allegations of exploitation, while since the start of 2023 German companies have been obliged to carry out due diligence with respect to human rights in global supply chains under Germany’s Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains.
Marija Anđelković from the anti-trafficking organization ASTRA says that the organization warned about the situation in that factory, but that there is no political will in Serbia to work on these cases.
This is not the first such video to surface from a Chinese-owned company in Serbia. In 2021, a Chinese manager at the Zijin mine in Bor kicked a Serbian engineer.
As for Linglong, Serbian magazine NIN reported that “in September 2024, with the official opening of the factory approaching, Serbian media reported that ‘Linglong International Europe’ was obliged to submit the document on environmental protection conditions along with the request for issuing site conditions, as well as a part of the environmental impact assessment procedure. It has not been done, nor does the company have such a document. “Linglong” does not meet the requirements of the Institute for Nature Conservation of Vojvodina Province, which are integral to the building permit.“
Portal eKapija reported in September that “the Linglong Tire factory in Serbia is operating with growing losses…the net loss amounted to 130 million yuan (16.6 million euro), surpassing the loss from the same period last year of 50 million yuan (6.4 million euro), which surprised many investors, according to Chinese financial news media platform Cailian Press...Sun Songtao, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Linglong Tire, said that as production capacity is gradually released and production and sales volume continue to grow, the Serbian factory would aim to achieve profitability as soon as possible.“
Good luck with that.
Serbianism 