[nomadking]

that prisons in the country have high rates of executions, forced labor and deaths in custody.

Of course the EU would never trade with such a country, never mind sign a trade deal with it.
Link

But diplomats and rights groups have long suspected, based on interviews with former inmates and reports in Vietnam’s state-run news media, that prisons in the country have high rates of executions, forced labor and deaths in custody.

Report on EU prisons

Jobs in prison are not always paid. In Poland all institutions provide limited opportunities to do volunteer and unpaid work for the benefit of the unit. Prisoners can dispense meals, work in the kitchen or help with cleaning. In Latvia, sentenced prisoners may be employed with or without remuneration. In Greece, instead of payment, cleaning and maintenance of prison facilities activities result in the reduction of the actual length of the sentence.
...
Many prisoners are paid much less, with the prisons taking a variable amount of their salary. In many cases we noticed prison work is not paid (i.e. in Poland). In Italy salaries have been blocked for the past twenty years and more, in spite of very many petitions of prisoners who regularly win at court (by law prisoners must be given a salary not inferior to two thirds of that stated for the same job by the national contract).

European Prison Rules assert that: “Prison authorities shall strive to provide sufficient work of a useful nature.” (26.2) Such activities have to be considered a positive element of the prison regime rather than punishment (26.1). In general terms, according to the national rules, it is possible to work both for the prison administration and private companies. However, employability depends on the availability of work places, and during the economic crisis prison work opportunities have significantly decreased almost everywhere.

So China is actually sticking to those guidelines.


The EU "chlorinates" vegetables and salads. It's a perfectly safe process, which is why the EU bans it for meat. Washing with air and a chlorinated wash is better than the EU standard of washing with air and water.
Link

Brazil sent one million salmonella-infected chickens to UK in two years
A fifth of Brazilian chicken exports are contaminated with the potentially life-threatening food poisoning bug salmonella

Link

The ban has stopped virtually all imports of US chicken meat which is generally treated by this process.It's not consuming chlorine itself that the EU is worried about - in fact in 2005 the European Food Safety Authority said that "exposure to chlorite residues arising from treated poultry carcasses would be of no safety concern". Chlorine-rinsed bagged salads are common in the UK and other countries in the EU.
But the EU believes that relying on a chlorine rinse at the end of the meat production process could be a way of compensating for poor hygiene standards - such as dirty or crowded abattoirs.