As the issue of detention camps for Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang continues, local authorities in the region are launching a new plan to force Uighurs to engage in low-grade manual labor in picking cotton. This issue has once again attracted the attention of western media and research institutions.
A new report by the Center for Global Policy, a Washington-based think tank, says 570,000 people in three Uighur settlements in Xinjiang were forced to pick cotton in state-run labor camps in 2018.
Researchers estimate that tens of thousands more were actually forced to work picking cotton.
Xinjiang is the world’s largest cotton producing region, accounting for one-fifth of global cotton production. The report says xinjiang’s use of forced labor in cotton production could have a “significant impact” on global supply chains.
It is reported that about 20 percent of the cotton yarn used in the United States comes from Xinjiang.
In the past two years, the scandal of millions of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang being imprisoned in concentration camps has spread around the world. The international community has strongly condemned it. The Chinese government explains that these are not detention camps but vocational training centers.
A REPORT published by the BBC in Britain on Tuesday also confirmed the phenomenon of forced labor in cotton production in Xinjiang. The report says leaked government documents show the scale of the forced labor, with as many as 150,000 people at one labor site and 124,500 at another.
BBC footage shows a number of new textile factories have recently opened near the camps. Since then, it has been found that large numbers of detainees regularly travel between the camps and the workshops. The detainees go to these factories to work in groups every day. The uighurs are strictly managed by the authorities, and the education content is mainly political education, requiring them to love the party and patriotism. Outside the textile factory, reporters were mobbed by local security guards and asked to delete everything on camera.
Chinese officials explain that all of the detainees are graduates of “vocational training centers.” But media reports say many of them are prisoners from prisons who were transferred to low-grade manufacturing factories to work.
The report, released Monday by the Center for Global Policy, said it was part of a labor transfer program officially launched in China. The so-called transfer, but the police under close supervision of the labor “point to point” transfer. The whole plan is “military administration”.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, explained Tuesday in response to questions about ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang that these people sign labor contracts with employers and receive compensation in accordance with government regulations on the basis of ‘equality, free will and consensus.’ There is no such thing as’ forced labor. ‘
Adrian Zenz, a Xinjiang expert who uncovered the xinjiang government documents, was quoted in the report as saying: “It is clear that the diversion of labor to cotton picking is most likely to involve forced labor.”
“Some ethnic minorities may show a certain willingness in this process, and they may also gain some economic benefits,” said German expert Zheng Guoen. But it is simply impossible to draw the line between coercion and voluntary choice.”
Earlier this month, the US government banned imports of cotton produced by China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps is a semi-militarized economic entity, accounting for one-third of Xinjiang’s cotton output.
The U.S. Senate has also introduced a bill that would ban all imports from Xinjiang. The bill is still under consideration.
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