An article on mainland China’s social media, “Behind the Cotton Sanctions: The Hidden Secrets of the Global Supply Chain,” written on Jan. 17, highlights the seriousness of the Western ban on cotton from Xinjiang. The article, which had received little attention, went viral after the Communist Youth League Central Committee suddenly criticized the European and American clothing brand H&M on its Weibo account on March 24, sparking a boycott.
The author of this article pen name “An Liang”, is familiar with mainland China factory production, labor rights NGO experts, he told the Central News Agency, the textile and apparel industry is an important advantage of mainland China, if Europe, the United States and Japan and other countries do not use Xinjiang cotton, no orders to mainland China’s factories, China’s textile and apparel industry will There is an oversupply, the government will no longer subsidize, from the beginning of cotton planting will shrink significantly, resulting in the closure of the factory unemployment.
People’s Daily 26 pointed out in an article “Xinjiang cotton: China’s own mainland is not enough”, that Xinjiang cotton accounts for 87% of China’s production, accounting for 67% of domestic consumption, to meet domestic demand, mainland China also needs to import about 2 million tons of cotton each year, the implication is not afraid of foreign sanctions. An Liang thinks this statement is a confusion.
The key is that you (Chinese manufacturers) cannot prove that the fabrics exported or provided to foreigners are not made of Xinjiang cotton,” he said. It is difficult to present proof that the fabric does not contain Xinjiang cotton because of factors such as the lack of transparency in production and sourcing operations in Chinese factories.
He cited the example of a large cotton textile company based in Hong Kong, Yida Group is now a headache for this problem. The multinational company has production bases in a number of countries, including mainland China, and sales customers include the United States, Europe, China and Japan.
The controversy has been unfolding last year, some garment companies declare concern about the forced labor of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, emphasizing that not to purchase local products and raw materials, behind the fact that in order to comply with the relevant regulations of the U.S. government.
On July 1, 2020, the U.S. government issued a “Business Advisory for Xinjiang Supply Chains” warning companies not to associate their supply chains with entities that commit “human rights abuses” in the region.
On December 3 of the same year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a ban on cotton and cotton fabric imports from Xinjiang and required all U.S. ports of entry to detain cotton products and any similar products produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps only if the importer could provide evidence that “forced labor” was not used in the production process. The detained goods will only be released.
Following the U.S., the European Union Customs has made a similar decision.
An article by An Liang points out that once the relevant decree came out, in order to avoid related losses or huge trouble, the British major clothing brand Marks & Spencer (Marks & Spencer) announced in early January to stop cooperating with suppliers involved in Xinjiang cotton, “there are more clothing brands are quietly withdrawn from mainland China”.
According to official data, China’s textile and apparel industry has 1.21 million legal entities in both the manufacturing and wholesale and retail sectors, directly employing as many as 15.636 million people, with a turnover of RMB 12.7 trillion in 2018, making it the second largest industrial sector after the electronics and information industry. If individual businesses and cotton farmers are included, the textile and apparel industry directly employs an estimated 25 million people.
On March 22, the United States joined the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom to impose further sanctions on CCP officials and companies over Xinjiang; on March 24, a wave of CCP boycotts of European and American brands began. Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong artists have taken a stand on the issue of Xinjiang cotton, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has taken a tough stance, saying that these foreign companies making money in mainland China should not “eat and smash their bowls,” but the reality may not allow the Chinese Communist Party to be tough for long.
The Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, whose stance has always been hawkish, can already see the end of the story in his 25-day article. Even though the words were clever, he was pragmatic: “Whether there is ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang or not… We are perfectly capable of proving it to the world. … Many of the Western garment giants had said under pressure from Washington to cut ties with Xinjiang’s cotton… Fighting to reverse their attitudes, including prompting the Good Cotton Development Institute (BCI) to redefine Xinjiang cotton, has again become our realistic grip to win this fight.”
Anliang said the current wave of boycotts of Western clothing brands by mainland Chinese netizens may cool down in a few days, and officials may intend to use this to get foreign companies to turn around and put pressure on their own country’s government, but the issue of cotton exports will eventually have to find a form that is acceptable to everyone, a more transparent display, and confirmation that there is no forced labor problem in Xinjiang before it can be resolved, “but who is going to show and who is going to prove that is now a big problem.”
He said the Swiss-based nonprofit Good Cotton Institute (BCI) used to be in charge of this role, but BCI released a statement on its website last October, saying it had decided to suspend certification of good cotton in Xinjiang because it was becoming increasingly difficult to conduct related investigations.
Anliang warned that if the “industrial risks due to political and ideological conflicts” are not seriously addressed, with the loss of international orders, about 1/2 of mainland China’s textile and apparel exporters and 1/4 of textile and apparel manufacturers may face the plight of no orders in the next 2 to 3 years. And because textile and apparel is a low-tech labor-intensive industry, substitutability is very strong, Europe, America and Japan orders once they leave mainland China, it may be difficult to return.
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