News of the World

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China's Tainted Cotton

The link above that sends you to the BBC article, includes information based on the summary provided by the Center for Global Policy regarding the current situation the cotton pickers in China.

New evidence from Chinese government documents and media reports shows that hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority laborers in Xinjiang are being forced to pick cotton by hand through a coercive state-mandated labor transfer and “poverty alleviation” scheme.
Previously, evidence for forced labor in Xinjiang pertained only to low-skilled manufacturing, including the production of textiles and apparel.
This report provides evidence for coercive labor related to all cotton produced in Xinjiang.
The evidence shows that in 2018, three Uyghur regions alone mobilized at least 570,000 persons into cotton-picking operations through the government’s coercive labor training and transfer scheme.

Summary and Full Report

Actually the US government knew something about such forced labor.

On Dec. 2, 2020, the United States placed a Withhold Release Order on cotton produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. However, this entity only produces 33 percent of Xinjiang’s cotton and only 0.4 percent of its highest-quality long-staple cotton.

Even if machines exist that could prevent China from depending heavily on workers to pick cotton, they simply rely on their Uighur slaves to collect cotton of different qualities, especially the best cotton available there. They don't choose to become a cotton picker, the CCP picks them. Officials or police officers supervise them, cameras are watching them the whole time. They examine their mental health, they can get indoctrinated by the authorities. If any of them has been sent to a reeducation camp, that person will likely wind up working there like anybody else. Minorities, including Uighurs, are their favorite, citizens belonging to the Han majority are being systematically discarded; the CCP depends less on Han people every year that passes.

Indoctrination

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.
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.