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LEILA FADEL, HOST: You ve probably been hearing about polysilicon recently. That s because in June, the U.S. government banned it from China s western region of Xinjiang over human rights concerns. It s the main material in solar panels, and nearly all of it comes from China. How did China become the world s dominant polysilicon producer? NPR s Emily Feng has been looking into this and brings us this story.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: It was 2005, and Shi Zhengrong was flying high. He had founded China s first major solar panel company, Suntech, and it had just listed on the New York Stock Exchange. But he had a problem.