China's Tainted Cotton: Uighurs forced to pick cotton in Xinjiang

>without caricature or prejudice.

Zenz collates decent research but his analysis is incredibly skewed and not remotely credible and occasionally flat out false i.e. on page 18:

>Two other accounts, however, give average income figures of only 1,670 and 1,805 RMB per month. These averages also are skewed by the fact that especially skilled or able-bodied pickers can earn high amounts.

Implication is people are being paid below minimum wage of 1820 rmb, actual source article for 1 month wage distribution: Highest: 10000 rmb. Average: 4800 rmb. Lowest: 2400 rmb. 3 month wage distribution (not everyone works all 3 months of picking season): Highest: 25,000 rmb. Average 12000 rmb. Lowest 6000 rmb.

Per capita income of the county in the article Awat, is 32000 rmb. So average is ~100% higher. Lowest is still above minimum. Zenz cherry picks and flat out lies to suit narrative as is customary. Which circles back to the broader point on "coerced" recruitment. These are adequate to well compensated work relative to local (country level) wages that's part of broader poverty alleviation program for the entire country, itself under the rural labour transfer program designed to move excess rural labour away from subsistence farming that's been ongoing for a decade (see 11th five-year plan from 2006). There's active recruitment in many provinces to hit quotas, but it's predominantly based off carrot of relatively higher wage. Some of it is coerced, which is inevitable given programs of this scale (45 _million_ across country for 2006-2010), likely more for XJ since there's more pressure to meet goals, and cotton is huge industry that's driving up development in the region as well as being more labour intensive.

Recall recent "exposé" that CCP confirms 1.3M Uyghurs [1] and 500k Tibetans [2] were in ostensibly "forced" work programs from last couple months based off public press releases - not leaks. Press releases because are _public_ programs. Press releases from other provinces of program: Hunan transferred 16M [3] rural workers, Sichuan 25M [4], Yunnan 13M [5]. Zenz / other western "analysis" propagandizes CCP literally dickwaving about poverty alleviation gets misconstrued as CCP admitting to slave labour. That's what Zenz does, collates public research and then fabricates a non existing narrative to suit US foreign policy goals. In this case recent XJ Cotton / XPCC sanctions designed to undermine these poverty alleviation efforts and remove Chinese carrot.

Circle back to remark about labour intensiveness of cotton harvesting, XJ attempted to import more efficient cotton picking machinery from John Deere this year, 4000% more because labour wages raised to the point where mechanization makes sense, domestic machines were not competitive. Latest sanctions means JD machines won't be available resulting in more labour requirements. Said sanctions is designed to force XJ to be dependant on manual labour so the industry can be spiked with "tainted" cotton accusations. Put on coldwar hat and the fact that US is third largest cotton producer after XJ (largest producer in China) and this is a very intelligently calibrated move to undermine XJ economic development and produce instability. There's no doubt abuse is happening in XJ pertaining to the security/sinicization architecture, some of it inevitably taints the poverty alleviation efforts. Reality is worse than CCP official narrative but less severe than Zenz propaganda manufactured to suit US geopolitics. Everything he writes about should be filtered accordingly. There is no credible reason why Zenz should be at the forefront of manufacturing XJ propaganda based on uncredible analysis nor why coordinated studies that spread his claims, with better methodology that actually debunks his estimates except manufactured consent i.e. Zenz estimates of millions interned is based off fantasy extrapolation from his assumption that 1200+ camps existed. GIS analysis found only ~300 camps, including new and decommissioned. We should be seeing a corresponding downward revision of his estimates, yet media and said studies themselves still parrot his figures uncritically. This is caricatured and prejudiced propaganda, by design.

[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3101986/chi...

[2] https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-forces-500-000-tibet...

[3] https://rst.hunan.gov.cn/rst/xxgk/gzdt/zwdt/202008/t20200824...

[4] http://www.xinhuanet.com/local/2019-03/01/c_1124181374.htm

[5] http://www.yn.xinhuanet.com/original/2020-04/04/c_138946019....