made British media "disappointed"! The director of Xinjiang Garment Factory responded to the so-called "forced labor": it is not true, and the most troublesome employees are changing jobs.
The blossoming white cotton is more than just a thing to keep out the cold in the eyes of anti-China forces. Recently, they have discovered more “uses” of cotton. This crop, which can be seen everywhere in Xinjiang, has become a new “carrier” for so-called “forced labor” in the West. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report on the 15th was titled "China's tainted cotton", citing the so-called "research" by anti-China scholars, saying that "China is forcing hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities to spread out in Xinjiang. Engaged in arduous physical labor in the cotton fields." "Global Times" reporters recently interviewed in Aksu, Korla and other places and found that Xinjiang's cotton production has long been highly mechanized, and the BBC report is seriously inconsistent with the facts .
Kuche pomegranate seed clothing company's production workshop work scene (Fan Lingzhi/photo)
"500,000 pickers per year"? Xinjiang’s mechanized cotton production debunks anti-China scholars’ rumors
“New evidence shows that more than 500,000 ethnic minority workers are dispatched to participate in seasonal cotton picking every year, and their working environment may be highly coercive.” The BBC report quoted The so-called "research" of Zheng Guoen, a senior researcher at the US anti-communist organization "Communist Victims Memorial Foundation", made this conclusion. In recent years, Zheng Guoen has become famous by relying on the false academic achievements of concocting anti-China issues, and he is the backbone of the anti-China research institute established by the US intelligence agencies. Prior to this, on December 2, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that the country’s Customs and Border Protection personnel would detain cotton and cotton products from China’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps at all ports of entry in the United States on the grounds that the Corps “exists forced labor. ".
The female workers in the production workshop of the Kuqa Pomegranate Seed Apparel Company (Fan Lingzhi/photo)
The BBC report also stated that in 2018, the Aksu and Hotan regions “sent 210,000 workers through labor transfer” and are “Chinese paramilitary organizations”. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps picks cotton. "There are many signs that this kind of participation is not entirely voluntary."
However, a reporter from in Xinjiang found that there were huge factual errors in the BBC report : Xinjiang’s cotton production has been highly mechanized, and even in the busy picking season, there is no need for a lot of "flower pickers." A practitioner in the local cotton industry told reporters that if the efficiency of manual cotton picking is followed, the harvesting is often unfinished every December. However, in several "ginning factories" (cotton processing enterprises) visited by the reporter, the harvest of cotton has already been completed, and the processed cotton bales are neatly stacked in rows, waiting to be shipped to downstream enterprises.
In the production workshop of Kuche Pomegranate Seed Garment Company, female workers are working (Yang Ruoyu/photo)
Bayingoleng Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture Taichang Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. legal representative Li Chengjun has been in charge of the company's agricultural sector for 12 years. In an interview on the 22nd, he said that since 2015, most of the agricultural cotton output in the Bazhou area has been machine-picked cotton, while the mechanization of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps has been realized earlier. At most, more than 3,000 workers are recruited from Henan, Sichuan and other inland provinces to pick cotton. The efficiency is low. Now, a cotton harvester can harvest 400 acres a day, and the company’s 60,000 acres of land can be harvested for 15 days. Basically 85% of the harvesting is finished. It only takes one or two hundred people to clean the cotton in the fields.”
Kuqa pomegranate seed clothing company's production workshop, female workers are working (Yang Ruoyu/photo)
Li Chengjun is not a boast. The reporter learned that highly mechanized cotton production is indeed no longer fresh in Xinjiang. Xinjiang Haoxing Cotton and Linen Co., Ltd. has been purchasing cotton produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps for many years. The company’s business manager Gao Ruinan told reporters on the 25th that the Corps’ mechanization was earlier than that of local governments, and now has a cotton harvest rate of more than nine. In some places, it has even reached 100%. The reporter of
BBC said that "filming in public areas was blocked." The respondent's response to the report of
BBC was full of imagination. According to the report, Xinjiang "many factories appear within the walls of the're-education camps' or not far away, indicating that large-scale employment and detention are two parallel goals." The report also distributed satellite pictures of Aksu Kuche City to prove that "factories and campsNow it seems to have been merged into a large-scale factory complex." Z5z
"I can solemnly say that the'education and training center' will be closed in 2019. "On the 24th, in what the BBC called the "large-scale factory complex"-Kuqa Pomegranate Seed Garments Co., Ltd., the director Huang Bingyou responded straightforwardly, "We are an ordinary factory, and the managers are all hired from the mainland. , Not dispatched by the government. "Z4z
Kuqa Pomegranate Seed Apparel Co., Ltd. location (Photo by Liu Xin)
Interestingly, perhaps worried that the interview material is not enough to support his conjecture, the BBC reporter who wrote the report by , John Sudworth, trumpeted himself as "repeated Police, local propaganda officials, etc. prevented the filming, and continued to be followed by vehicles driven by a large number of unknown people, tracking hundreds of kilometers. "" Sha Lei and his team also released footage of his quarrel with multiple people outside the pomegranate seed company. A middle-aged man blocked his camera with his hand and was said to be "although the BBC team was only on public roads outside the factory. Filming, but was still repeatedly blocked by officials of different identities. "Z5z
" This is completely reversed black and white! "The reporter interviewed the man who blocked the camera in the video. His name was Jiang Yong. He was not a "government official" as the BBC referred to, but the director of the logistics and security department of the pomegranate seed company. Jiang Yong restored the situation to reporters that day: "11 On the morning of the 19th, our security guard found that a foreigner was holding a camera to take pictures of the situation in the factory workshop. I walked out and told them not to take pictures. Who knew they turned the camera to me immediately. As a factory manager, I have the responsibility to protect the safety of the factory. As an individual, I also have my own portrait right! "Z5z
reporter learned that after Sha Lei and others were discovered, their vehicles drove away quickly, and kept going in circles and secretly filming until they were stopped by the traffic police who received the call. Jiang Yong told reporters that Sha Lei and others kept claiming at the time. He was shooting in a "public area". He felt that the logic was absurd: "You see where they are standing, they are only tens of meters away from the workshop. According to their logic, if it is not a factory but my house, I will take a bath at home. When going to the toilet, is it possible for them to take photos in the'public area' at will? "Z5z
Jiang Yong said that what made him most annoyed was that one of the reporters said after an apology that Jiang Yong’s image would not appear on any public platform. As a result, after the report was issued, he was blocked by the camera with his hand. It was taken out of context as "local officials blocked interviews," and it was said that "this blocking action is even more suspicious." Jiang Yong felt ridiculous about this statement: "We have nothing to hide. It is the employees who are working hard. The reason why I am I was very emotional at the time because foreign media had previously secretly filmed and the report was completely slanderous. "Z4z
Pomegranate Seed Plant Manager: There is no "forced labor" at all. What is the most troublesome employee's job-hopping
Pomegranate Seed Company's workshop? The answer may make the BBC reporter "disappointed". When the reporter walked here on the 24th, he saw The situation is the same as that of clothing companies in many regions in Xinjiang: spotless workshops, brand-new machines, and employees wearing neat work clothes. According to public information, the pomegranate seed company established in March 2020 mainly produces school uniforms, luggage and other products, and orders are mostly from Locally in Xinjiang.
The primary school uniform produced in the production workshop of the Kuche Pomegranate Seed Apparel Company (Fan Lingzhi/photo)
The 23-year-old workshop leader Aliye Abbaikeri is a girl who loves to laugh. This is her first For a formal job, the monthly salary is about 2500 yuan. She told reporters that the most important thing is that she can realize her childhood dream here: learn to design clothes. The dormitory provided by the factory for workers is transformed from a spacious residential house. Heating, hot water, independent toilets and other facilities are all available. Female worker Rena Guli Guhara brought reporters to visit her dormitory, and the paper flowers plastered on the walls attracted reporters. She said that it was her and her roommate. Cut out in spare time.
The warm dormitory of female worker Rena Guli Guharamu
In order to strengthen the outside world’s association of “forced labor” in Xinjiang, the BBC report specifically emphasizes that the process of recruiting employees in the factory has “government mobilization and organization”. "In this regard, the director of the factory, Huang Bingyou, told reporters that this is not true. He said that when the factory was first established, the management staff took the recruitment advertisements to the surrounding villages and distributed them, and each village had a contact person. The recruited employees lived in their homes. Those who are close can come back in the morning and in the evening, and those who live far away have dormitories.There were more than 1,800 people, and more than 500 people stayed voluntarily through training and guidance. The factory will also subsidize part of the salary during the training period in order to meet the minimum wage standard. "There is no compulsion to say. Now we are a company, the most troublesome thing is that employees privately inquire about the salary of other companies, and the newly trained employees have to change jobs. The company can’t help it.”
Kuche Pomegranate Seed Apparel Company canteen is waiting for dinner, lunch is drawn (Fan Lingzhi/photo)
Kuche Pomegranate Seed Apparel Company canteen is waiting for dinner (Fan Lingzhi/photo)
Training Workers with relatively low work skills still have to subsidize their salaries. Why do companies that should be "profit-first" travel all the way to Xinjiang to set up factories? When asked by reporters about this question, Huang Bingyou said, “Once our company has made money, it should invest in society to help solve the difficulties of more low-income people so that they can get rich together. This is our China. Things passed down from civilization."
Source: Global Times-Global.com, reporter: Fan Lingzhi, Liu Xin, Yang Ruoyu
Editors of this issue: Hu Chengyuan, Zhao Yajiao
