China’s Minority Problem

I see on my calendar that today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins at sundown. Congress started the practice in 1979. 

The Germans killed 6 million Jews and 11 million other people. 

The general consensus is that we as a world will never allow this to happen again.

Unless it interferes with the bottom line, as it does in China.

In that country, around 1.8 million Uighur and other Turkish and muslim people are held in “prison camps, factories, farms and internment camps in Xinjiang.”

These people are virtually slaves, and their slave-labor accounts for 20% of all the cotton products sold in the world. No other country exports more cotton than China, with 84% of their crop coming from Xinjiang. 

The global brands depend on that slave labor, and the Chinese government depends on that money to keep their rich, entitled overlords firmly ensconced in power in Beijing. 

“Former reeducation camp detainees have told CNN they experienced political indoctrination and abuse inside the camps, such as food and sleep deprivation and forced injections. CNN reporting has also found that some Uyghur women were forced to use birth control and undergo sterilization as part of a deliberate attempt to push down birth rates among minorities in Xinjiang.”

There are a total of 55 different minority groups in China. For comparison, there are five official minority groups in the US, and one for people of two or more races. Yeah, kind of funny...but China has more minorities than us, but we seem to have more problems with race issues.

Or do we? After all, we’re not forcibly sterilizing minority women, reeducating their children, and enslaving their men to work in the fields. We haven’t done those things in over 100 years (aside from the reeducation, perhaps).

Earlier this year the Department of Labor said that gloves, hair products, textiles, thread/yarn, and tomato products are all being produced with the slave labor in Xinjiang. 

And it’s not just Xinjiang. Over 1,000 miles away on the eastern coast of China is the city of Fujian, where many from the Uighur minority group are shipped to work in factories. Here’s what that can look like:

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“Beyond Xinjiang, in the coastal Chinese province of Fujian, Uyghur workers at a factory in Quanzhou face similar abuses. Uyghur workers are made to live in separate dormitories from Han workers. These dormitories are surrounded by an iron gate and security cameras. When finished for the day, often working more hours than their Han co-workers, the Uyghur workers are escorted back to their dormitories by provincial police officers from Xinjiang – not Fujian. The local police say the roll call is to ensure no one is missing. Uyghur workers at this factory are not allowed to exercise their free will to leave. Even if they could leave, they would not get far, as local police have confiscated their identification materials.”

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Factories like this are given subsidies by the Chinese government to employ these people, who often make 80 cents a day and work more than their Han counterparts (the dominant racial group). “Participating companies receive 1,800 RMB per camp detainee they train, and a further 5,000 RMB for each detainee they employ.” ($250 to $760 US dollars).


Conclusion

Things in Xinjiang aren’t going to get better. I bet they’ll get worse. There might be some outcry in the world, but when push comes to shove, most people will keep buying these cheap products made by slave labor.

So the problem will continue. 

American companies will continue to make their products in China, even though the Chinese government engages in slavery, forced sterilization, and likely the killing-off of Uighurs that ‘don’t fall into line.’

76 years ago we said ‘never again.’ What a joke. 

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