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Another important report from Adrian Zenz, filling in impt pieces regarding PRC state coerced labor transfers of Uyghurs to pick cotton for Bingtuan and other growers. 85% of Chinese cotton can't be untangled from XJ carceral regime (a thread re thread:) https://cgpolicy.org/briefs/coercive-labor-in-xinjiang-labor-transfer-and-the-mobilization-of-ethnic-minorities-to-pick-cotton/
I've suggested in some talks and conversations with journalists that the issue wasn't Uyghurs picking cotton. I was wrong about that--it's not just XJ admin or XPCC cotton, and it's not just factories spinning, weaving, stitching textiles: its harvesting itself (more)
XJ grows 85% of China's cotton; only a small amount is mechanically harvested, the rest hand-picked. Recently PRC has transitioned from expensive harvesting by Han migrant workers from the east & used intensive cadre workteams to recruit, indoctrinate, organize and oversee
work-gangs of non-Han cotton-pickers transferred far from home, often with military-style supervision. Not directly from internment camps, but the network of camps creates coercive background: say no when told to go pick cotton, you might end up in a camp.
Remember that PRC state forced many Uyghurs out of cities back to villages since 2009, 2016. PRC claims (many quotes by Zenz) that Uyghurs are "poor because they are lazy." Ever heard that before? But they've been systematically excluded from the market and entrepreneurial
opportunities, as Ilham Tohti wrote about in 2013-14 for PRC government-commissioned study. Poverty alleviation for Han farmers during reform era did not involve forced mass proletarianization such as imposed on Uyghurs now, but rather opening up market opportunities.
PRC has moved cotton growing and processing systematically from eastern China to XJ over past 20 years--clearly planned. Last cheapest labor for low-value added manufacturing is Uyghurs, who under coercive conditions can be squeezed for benefit of XPCC and corporations.
Huge implications for all textiles originating not just in Xinjiang, but in China, plus those stitched in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan etc. with PRC materials: XJ cotton (18.5% of world crop) is admixed with fibers from all over to make yarn used to make fabric for apparel.
It's virtually impossible to distinguish XJ cotton once in the fiber and fabric. But 85% of what China grows is grown in XJ, including by XPCC which runs prisons and camps; and cotton from all XJ growers is harvested by non-Hans coercively transferred to this hard labor.
Sven Beckert's book Empire of Cotton shows the 500 year history of capital and the state working together in various ways to coerce people to pick cotton cheap to keep costs down for industrialists and investors.
That's the system that once gave us slave plantations in the US south and fueled the rise of Lancashire factories in industrial revolution. Now here's its new iteration, with a hi-tech surveillance state and internment camps built by the Chinese Communist Party (NB New Lefties!)
If this holiday you gift a cotton garment made in PRC, or made with cotton from China, you are 85% certain to be clothing your loved ones in the threads of ethnocide from the Uyghur Region. END
