Re:Xinjiang cotton: Western clothes brands vanish as backlas...
by yorwba on Saturday March 27, 2021 @08:06AM
(#26601722)
> Many do not agree with the western narrative of forced labor cotton.
Which implies that they haven't read their country's criminal law (which requires all able-bodied prisoners to work) or didn't think through it's implications (of course there's forced labor cotton, the same way there's forced labor rice, forced labor coal and forced labor textiles.) Mechanization doesn't negate that, since being forced to operate the cotton-picking machines or a sewing machine is still forced labor.
But part of the blame lies with the "Western narrative" not trying very hard to be believable. E.g. using "Xinjiang" as a shorthand for "Uyghur forced labor" when 1) there are other ethnic groups in Xinjiang 2) forced labor affects at most a few percent of the population (to be clear, that's still hundreds of thousands of people) and 3) it's not limited to Xinjiang, but applies to all of China (as I said, prisoners are required by law to work.)
In the West, Western reporting on China operates in easy mode: hardly anyone has the background knowledge to notice imprecise or even incorrect reporting. But Chinese people are going to notice a disconnect with their daily lived experience. That disconnect can be explained, but I've yet to see a Western journalist do a good job explaining it, or even realize that there's something to explain.
Which implies that they haven't read their country's criminal law (which requires all able-bodied prisoners to work) or didn't think through it's implications (of course there's forced labor cotton, the same way there's forced labor rice, forced labor coal and forced labor textiles.) Mechanization doesn't negate that, since being forced to operate the cotton-picking machines or a sewing machine is still forced labor.
But part of the blame lies with the "Western narrative" not trying very hard to be believable. E.g. using "Xinjiang" as a shorthand for "Uyghur forced labor" when 1) there are other ethnic groups in Xinjiang 2) forced labor affects at most a few percent of the population (to be clear, that's still hundreds of thousands of people) and 3) it's not limited to Xinjiang, but applies to all of China (as I said, prisoners are required by law to work.)
In the West, Western reporting on China operates in easy mode: hardly anyone has the background knowledge to notice imprecise or even incorrect reporting. But Chinese people are going to notice a disconnect with their daily lived experience. That disconnect can be explained, but I've yet to see a Western journalist do a good job explaining it, or even realize that there's something to explain.