Lazy people, drunkards and “other people with insufficient internal motivation” must undergo “repeated mental education” to ensure they participate in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region , a previously unpublished internal report. Government document ordered local cadres.
If such efforts do not produce “obvious results,” enforcement action should be taken, authorities are advised in a July 2019 document issued by the Yarkand County Poverty Alleviation Task Force (Shache) of the Kashgar Prefecture (Chinese: Kashi).
As of late 2019, the Yarkand authorities were compiling lists of “unmotivated” people, including people as young as 77, and proposing solutions for their “laziness”, including sending them to other counties to work in cotton fields.
The documents were released in a report Tuesday by Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow and director of China studies at the Washington-based Communism Victims Memorial Foundation.
They show that state efforts to force Uighurs into “poverty alleviation” measures, including labor transfers and seasonal work, intensified in Xinjiang after 2018. In some cases, the documents called for an increase of the “political status” of poverty alleviation work and warned of pictures of “serious” repercussions for not achieving results.
They also demonstrate that historical models, such as the one used by the International Labor Organization, often fall short when used to assess state-sponsored forced labor in areas like Xinjiang because they only represent commercial and not political exploitation, according to the report. report.
“If a government like a Western government wants to effectively combat Uyghur forced labor, these are the elements that they need to take into account and analyze,” Zenz told RFA Uyghur in an interview.
“State-sponsored forced labor is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach that affects an entire region, and not just… isolated pockets of forced labor detected here and there. It creates a whole regional systemic risk, a social risk.”
Linking forced labor to the fight against terrorism
By elevating poverty alleviation to a political task, rather than a purely economic one, Beijing has been able to link forced labor to the eradication of terrorism, Zenz said.
“You get them off the land where they can be free to do their own thing and they can have a leisurely season, so they can choose to work or not work,” he said.
“But this perceived Uyghur idleness is considered a national security risk and that is why the push in 2018 and 2019 to push Uyghurs into all kinds of work is considered a national security issue…and of course this urgency creates a very strong level. of coercion,” Zenz said.
In Xinjiang, Beijing has taken advantage of a centralized authoritarian system to penalize non-compliance with its poverty alleviation campaign, says the report, titled “Coercive Labor in the Cotton Harvest in Xinjiang and Uzbekistan Uyghur Autonomous Region.”
These sanctions included the threat of internment and the detection of deviations through automated preventive surveillance systems.
“Environments resulting from ‘structurally enforced consent’ are not necessarily immediately observable by outsiders, and can be difficult to assess through conventional means such as the ILO’s framework of forced labor indicators, which was not designed to assess compliance. state-sponsored forced labor,” the report said.
legislative cogs
Zenz called on the European Union to develop “effective legislation” addressing state-sponsored forced labor affecting an entire region and for the United States to continue to enforce the December 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which requires to the Americans. companies importing goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been made using Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production.
Without the proper tools needed for the international community to hold China accountable for such practices, “Beijing’s long-term economic and political objectives in (Xinjiang) could mean that coercive labor transfers to cotton picking and related industries could persist for a long time. the report warned.
Andrew Bremberg, president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and former US representative to the UN, told RFA that steps taken by the US and the international community to address forced labor in Xinjiang are “sadly insufficient” and have done little to change Beijing’s policies in the region.
“The United States needs to help lead this effort both bilaterally, in terms of strengthening enforcement of our own laws… (and) working (working) with other countries to hold China accountable in multilateral settings like the International Labor Organization. . ,” he said.
“At the same time, we need to strengthen those organizations and entities with other countries to ensure they provide better protection against state-sponsored forced labor.”
The EU is currently reviewing proposed legislation that would allow import bans on products linked to serious human rights violations, such as forced labour.
Bremberg welcomed the proposed legislation, but cautioned that such a rule must be constructed correctly if the EU is to have the desired effect.
“If they try to use only the indicators of forced labor that the ILO has used in the past, it probably won’t affect imports of forced labor products from Xinjiang, given the unique nature posed by state-sponsored forced labor,” he said.
Bremberg said a strong response from the international community is needed, including boycotts of imports to “make it clear to China that their behavior, their actions that violate individual rights, human rights…will not be allowed without consequences.”
‘Hiding in plain sight’
The Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs released a statement Tuesday condemning the state-sponsored coercive labor practices outlined in Zenz’s report, which it said reveals the “sociocultural contexts and authoritarian systems that have created coercive work environments.” in (Xinjiang), which are not easily captured through standard measures such as the ILO indicators of forced labor”.
The report “reveals the deep-seated and systemic dynamics of coercion that have perpetuated ‘structurally forced consent’ environments in (Xinjiang), leaving innocent Uyghurs powerless and at the mercy of China’s repressive state apparatus,” the executive director said. of the CFU, Rushan Abbas.
“These atrocities are hidden in plain sight, making them extremely difficult to detect and assess through conventional means,” he said. “The international community must take swift and decisive action to end these egregious practices and hold the perpetrators accountable.”
In addition to calling on nations to impose sanctions on China for its coercive labor practices in Xinjiang, the CFU called on companies to take a hard look at their supply chains and take immediate action to ensure they are not contributing to such abuses.
Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
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