BEIJING: Hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority workers in northwest China Xinjiang The region is forced to pick cotton through a coercive state scheme, according to a report.
The investigation released Monday by the Washington-based think tank Center for Global Policy is likely to put more pressure on global brands like Nike, Gap and Adidas, which have been accused of using Uighur forced labor in their textile supply chains.
Rights activists have said that Xinjiang is home to a vast network of extrajudicial internment camps that have imprisoned at least one million people, which China has defended as vocational training centers to counter extremism.
The report, which referenced government documents online, said the total number involved in three Uighur-majority regions exceeds a 2018 estimate of 517,000 people forced to pick cotton as part of the scheme by hundreds of thousands.
The researchers warned of “potentially drastic consequences” for global cotton supply chains, as Xinjiang produces more than 20 percent of the world’s cotton and about a fifth of the yarn used in the United States comes from the region.
The BBC reported that it had asked 30 major international brands if they intended to continue sourcing products from China as a result of the findings; Of those who responded, only four said they had a strict policy of requiring items from anywhere in China to do so. do not use raw cotton from Xinjiang.
Beijing He said all the detainees have “graduated” from the centers, but reports have suggested that many former inmates have been transferred to low-skilled factory jobs, often linked to the camps.
But the think tank report said participants in the labor transfer scheme were heavily watched by police, with point-to-point transfers, “military-style management” and ideological training, citing government documents.
“It is clear that labor transfers for cotton picking carry a very high risk of forced labor,” Adrian Zenz, who discovered the documents, wrote in the report.
“Some minorities may show some degree of consent in relation to this process, and may benefit financially. However … it is impossible to define where coercion ends and local consent can begin.
The report also says there is a strong ideological incentive to enforce the scheme, as rising rural incomes allow officials to achieve state-mandated poverty alleviation goals.
China has steadfastly denied the forced labor allegations involving Uyghurs in Xinjiang and says training programs, job plans and better education have helped root out extremism in the region.
When asked about the report on Tuesday, Beijing said workers “of all ethnicities in Xinjiang sign employment contracts with companies based on their own voluntary choice of occupation.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin also attacked the report’s author, Zenz, saying that he was “the backbone of an anti-China investigative organization created under the manipulation of the US intelligence agency, which mainly manufactures rumors against China and defames China. ”
Earlier this month, the United States banned imports of cotton produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a major paramilitary entity, which covers about a third of the crop produced in the entire region.
Another bill banning all imports from Xinjiang has yet to be approved by the US Senate.
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