By John Sudworth
China is forcing hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other minorities into hard, manual labour in the vast cotton fields of its western region of Xinjiang, according to new research seen by the BBC.
Based on newly discovered online documents, it provides the first clear picture of the potential scale of forced labour in the picking of a crop that accounts for a fifth of the world’s cotton supply and is used widely throughout the global fashion industry.
Alongside a large network of detention camps, in which more than a million are thought to have been detained, allegations that minority groups are being coerced into working in textile factories have already been well documented.
The Chinese government denies the claims, insisting that the camps are “vocational training schools” and the factories are part of a massive, and voluntary, “poverty alleviation” scheme.
But the new evidence suggests that upwards of half a million minority workers a year are also being marshalled into seasonal cotton picking under conditions that again appear to raise a high risk of coercion.
“In my view the implications are truly on a historical scale,” Dr Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington who uncovered the documents, told the BBC.
“For the first time we not only have evidence of Uighur forced labour in manufacturing, in garment making, it’s directly about the picking of cotton, and I think that is such a game-changer.
“Anyone who cares about ethical sourcing has to look at Xinjiang, which is 85% of China’s cotton and 20% of the world’s cotton, and say, ‘We can’t do this anymore.’”
The documents, a mixture of online government policy papers and state news reports, show that in 2018 the prefectures of Aksu and Hotan sent 210,000 workers “via labour transfer” to pick cotton for a Chinese paramilitary organisation, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Others speak of pickers being “mobilised and organised” and transported to fields hundreds of kilometres away.
This year, Aksu identified a need for 142,700 workers for its own fields, which was largely met through the principle of “transferring all those who should be transferred.”
References to “guiding” the pickers to “consciously resist illegal religious activities” indicate that the policies are designed predominantly for Xinjiang’s Uighurs and other traditionally Muslim groups.
Government officials first sign “contracts of intent” with the cotton farms, determining the “number of workers hired, the location, the accommodation and wages,” after which pickers are then mobilised to “enthusiastically sign up”.
There are plenty of clues that this enthusiasm is less than whole-hearted. One report describes a village where people were “unwilling to work in agriculture”.
Officials had to visit again to perform “thought education work”. Eventually 20 were sent off, with a plan in place to “export” 60 more.
Camps and Factories
China has long used the mass relocation of its rural poor – with the stated aim of improving their employment prospects – as part of a national anti-poverty campaign.
In recent years, those efforts have gone into overdrive.
Arguably President Xi Jinping’s most important domestic political priority, the goal is to eliminate absolute poverty in time for the Communist Party’s centenary next year.
But in Xinjiang there is evidence of a far more political purpose and much higher levels of control, as well as massive targets and quotas which officials are under pressure to meet.
A marked shift in China’s approach to the region can be traced back to two brutal attacks on pedestrians and commuters in Beijing in 2013 and the city of Kunming in 2014, blamed by China on Uighur Islamists and separatists.
Its response, from 2016 onwards, has been the building of “re-education” camps for anyone displaying any behaviour viewed as a potential sign of untrustworthiness, such as installing an encrypted messaging app on a phone, viewing religious content or having a relative living overseas.
While China calls them “schools for de-radicalisation”, its own records suggest that the reality is a draconian system of internment which aims to replace old identities of faith and culture with an enforced loyalty to the Communist Party.
But the construction work didn’t stop with the camps.
Since 2018, a huge industrial expansion has been under way involving the building of hundreds of factories.
The parallel purpose of mass employment and mass internment is made clear by the appearance of many factories within the walls of the camps, or in close proximity to them.
Work, the government appears to believe, will help transform the “outdated ideas” of Xinjiang’s minorities and remake them as modern, secular, wage-earning Chinese citizens.
Hmmm… 404 Page Cannot Be Found. I wonder who’s behind that?
Well, there’s yet another close association between the CCP and our own Democrats. Aside from both wanting to take those who are “politically unreliable” and put them in “re-education camps” or hard labor. But, there is yet another kinship.
Using slaves to produce work, more specifically, pick cotton. Who more than Democrats can appreciate their efforts? No wonder they not only allow and even welcome the CCP to infiltrate their party and undermine our government but they make excuses for Chinese atrocities and aggression and apologize for them. The bond between the two parties could not be more solid, real and unbreakable.
Link didn’t work at first, then I did a search of the writer’s name and, found this story, then linked thru that.
Same link, but then it worked.
Weird.
Who knew that not all slaves are blacks?
American’s blacks need to be shown this.
A few months ago we saw a video of Chinese soldiers forcing tied up, blindfolded Uighurs onto trains bound for “camps.”
And this is where they ended up.
Yet the Left loves them some Chinese Commies.
Go figure.
But then again, Biden only just got (cough, cough) elected and he’s already throwing BLM under the bus.
He wants Buttiget, Rahm, and Garcetti.
BLM says none of those are acceptable.
BLM loses.
Blacks never learn.
Sigh.
@Nan G:
More than that, they need to be shown the Democrat reaction to it, which is already apparent. The love it as long as they get paid. Just like the did during slavery in the South.
What the hell do you think is going to happen after the big reset? Food, clothing, and energy doesnt happen without labor. The children in Africa are happily mining raw material for Grettas green batteries and those in the Paris Climate accord too our cellphones and laptops are just as tainted.
China style communism cant survive without consumerism only we wont be the big consumers anymore.
Here in America we have Machines that take care of that problem in China heir still in the Dark Ages we have Cooton Picking Machines that allow blacks to harvest the cotton from the comfort of their Tractors
@Spurwing Plover: Prison or slave labor, which you have an almost endless supply of and for whom you don’t have to spend a lot of money for upkeep is cheaper that machinery, even Chinese machinery.
But Democrats don’t mind crawling in bed with (sometimes literally) to do business these slave masters.
Are they helping to make any of ivanka’s brand clothes?
@John: Idiot, there is no such brand. Use your google machine get informed.
@John: No, they just make the cotton balls for useful idiots to stuff in their ears so they don’t hear any of the facts about Democrats.
@John:
I think “Hunter Biden-grade fentanyl” is more in their wheelhouse.