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> The point of forced labour in these situations is not the efficient picking of cotton but as a form of punishment. Punishment isn't the right word. The goal
by scarmig 6y ago
> The point of forced labour in these situations is not the efficient picking of cotton but as a form of punishment.
Punishment isn't the right word. The goal is to obliterate Uyghur village life and shift them to a legible lifestyle that is integrated into the Chinese mass market. Having them e.g. pick cotton, aside from being a convenient way to pay off well-connected supporters, makes the Uyghurs dependent on a regime-friendly company and also gives them more income to buy the same goods and consume the same media as the rest of China.
ETA: I'm confused as to whether this comment pissed off a bunch of wumao or pissed off a bunch of Americans who somehow managed to misread it as praising China. An explanation of a bad behavior isn't a justification for it, but something that can help provide insight into why it's happening and possible pressure points to stop it.
- pjc50 6y agoForced labour situations do not usually result in increased income. Sometimes, not any income at all.
- scarmig 6y agoThat's not this situation, though. The original report on coercion in the Xinjiang cotton industry doesn't even make the claim that they're enslaved, uncompensated, or forced, although after passing through a dozen media articles it's warped into that. Most people here are seemingly unaware that this is an entirely different set of allegations than the reeducation camps. Implicit coercion has been used to shift Uyghur people into the market economy. The visible income of poor Uyghurs is in fact the metric that local officials are being evaluated on for performance.