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This article has next to no information on the Xinjiang cotton industry, and it devotes an inordinate amount of space towards accusations of forced labor. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:50, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Why does this article exist? If it is about the history of the cotton industry in Xinjiang then it probably shouldn't exist as no other country or region has their own article about their cotton industry, and relevant information should be in this article(or a new article broadly on the history of Cotton in China, though I feel that article would be unwarranted): /info/en/?search=China_Cotton_Association
If it is about allegations of forced labour by Uyghurs in the Xinjiang cotton industry, it should be here: /info/en/?search=Xinjiang_internment_camps#Forced_labor
Either way, there is no reason for this article to exist, it's information should be contained in one of the above articles. The scope of this issue is too narrow to warrant more than a paragraph or two on a broader article. BSMRD ( talk) 17:58, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
The section now titled "Forced labor" should be titled "Allegations of forced labor", in order to conform with NPOV. Controversial allegations - especially serious allegations of this nature - should not be put in Wikivoice. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 20:29, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
appear to raise a high risk of coercion(emphasis added). The BBC article also notes that rural labor transfer programs are common in China, and that they are used as part of the country's national poverty alleviation campaign:
China has long used the mass relocation of its rural poor - with the stated aim of improving their employment prospects - as part of a national anti-poverty campaign.The BBC article discusses the possibility that there is coercion, but that possibility remains speculative, and the extent of possible coercion is unclear. News reports discussing claims are not the same as news reports making factual statements in their own voice. Please stop mixing up the two. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 09:28, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Positive attitudes toward communism and socialism are at an all-time high in the United States. We have a solemn obligation to expose the lies of Marxism for the naïve who say they are willing to give collectivism another chance. New generations need to confront the reality of Marxism in practice. Socialism is not a kind, humane philosophy. Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history.
Putting unsubstantiated allegations of "large-scale forced labor" into Wikivoice is POV. Edit-warring to keep the Wikivoice statement in the article, after it has been challenged on the talk page (as it has been above) is also troubling. Mikehawk10, please stop trying to force through this language and actually seek consensus here. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
@ Mikehawk10: I'd also ask you to self-revert here: [2]. The Uyghur Human Rights Project was founded using funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, an arm of the US government. When quoting an organization that is closely connected to an interested party (such as the US government, which has a tense geopolitical relationship with China and which has been making accusations of forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang), this must be noted in the text. Simply referring to UHRP as "US-based", when they are in fact funded by the US government, is not sufficient. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
The page has recently seen an editor boldly add an in-text attribution to describe the Uyghur Human Rights Project as U.S.-funded group. I don't believe that this matches how the group is generally described in coverage of related events by reliable sources, which at the end of the day this page should reflect. None of these sources appear to mention U.S. funding when using quotes from the source. I believe that we should reflect the use of the source in ways that reliable sources do, which appears to generally either be by listing the name of project while noting that it is a rights/advocacy group and/or by saying that it is based in the United States/the District of Columbia. I am reverting the in-text description of the group along these lines, and I am starting a discussion here per WP:BRD.
Sources that refer to the
Uyghur Human Rights Project
|
---|
|
Thought I would open this up to the talk page instead of doing it unilaterally, this title is better IMO as it is in line with all the other articles on Cotton production by country. BSMRD ( talk) 22:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
{{
Cotton production}}
template are named.) If the article is about non-cotton production related industries in Xinjiang it should probably be renamed to "Textile industry in Xinjiang" to match
Textile industry in China and have it's scope expanded.
BSMRD (
talk)
15:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)We had some back-and-forth edits earlier regarding the following paragraph. In particular, there was some confusion about sourcing. These edits are applicable to several different pages. We talked through it on my talk page and @ Horse Eye's Back has asked for further context from the source. I figure it's better to put it here for posterity instead of adding to my talk page.
The edit is:
Academics Zhun Xu and Fangfei Lin write that there is insufficient support for claims of forced labor in Xinjiang. They cite the historic significance of Uyghur agricultural workers as a long-standing labor force for manual cotton harvesting and staffing companies' widespread recruitment of Uyghur workers due to lower travel costs. In their view, "[T]he labor demand of Uyghur seasonal cotton pickers in south Xinjiang is largely decided by its relatively low degree of agricultural capitalization, not due to the 'special treatment' towards labor migrants of a certain ethnic minority.".
The source is Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Policy. This is an academic peer reviewed text, first published in hardback for the European book market by a 300 year old publishing house, Brill Academic Publishing. It is part of of Brills' "Studies in Critical Social Sciences" book series. One editor was confused and thought this was self-published. It's not. Another editor questioned the source because my edition is published by a leftist publishing house, Haymarket books. Haymarket has merely republished the book in soft cover in the US market, as it is doing with all of Brill's "Studies in Critical Social Sciences" series.
Here is further detail on what the source says.
The source is talking about how US charges of human rights violations in Xinjiang fall into two categories: (1) an Uyghur genocide and (2) coercive or forced labor in Xinjiang. (pg. 313). It goes on to discuss the reports of forced labor and how the US acted on those reports to pass sanctions related to the Xinjiang cotton industry (pg. 313-314) (for wiki article context, notice that the reports and sanctions are discussed in these articles already).
Next, the source goes on to discuss historic significance of Uyghur agricultural workers for manual cotton harvesting, and the systemic economic factors why Uyghur's doing this work is result of those economic factors, and not a result of government policies singling out Uyghurs. Those factors include lower travel costs for staffing companies and cotton plantations hiring Uyghur migrants (labor costs are the same) and the lack of agricultural capitalization in the area which requires a high degree of manual agricultural labor. (this discussions extends from pg. 314-316 where it concludes)
Here is part of the discussion on pg. 314. Any typos will be mine:
Rumors of 'forced Uyghur labor' are inconsistent with the history and current situation of the cotton industry and current situation of the cotton industry in Xinjiang. Around 2000, Xinjiang has become China's largest cotton-producing region. Yet, Xinjiang's cotton cultivation at that time was incompatible with the operational requirement of cotton harvesting machines, and a large amount of manpower was urgently demanded during the cotton harvest period. Hundreds of thousands of migrants, thereupon, have moved seasonally from central and eastern provinces into Xinjiang's cotton fields. It should also be noted that the occurrence of Uyghur cotton pickers, as labor migrants in Xinjiang's cotton fields, is not a newly emerging phenomenon. Some news reports suggest that, around 2003, or even earlier, many Uyghur farmers from Hotan or Kashgar have embarked on their migrant journey of working as seasonal cotton pickers in Aksu (Xu et al. 2005). Their motives for seasonal migration varied little from that of Han seasonal cotton pickers from inner provinces, unrelated to forced labor but largely derived from the desire for increasing cash income to maintain or improve their livelihood that has been greatly affected by commodification of subsistence during the process of China's capitalist agrarian changes after 1978. Since the number and scale of Uyghur cotton pickers was much small than those who migrated from inner provinces, they did not receive widespread media coverage and attention. However, it is undeniable that the group of Uyghur cotton pickers has been a key and longstanding labor force for manual cotton harvesting.
Then there are statistics about low rates of agricultural capitalization, including lack of machine harvesting, and persistent demand for manual labor as a result, and getting us into the author's field observations. That goes from pg. 314 and takes us to pg. 315 which was some material worth quoting at length:
[B oth XPCC's companies and private cotton planters in Aksu had widely recruited Uyghur migrants through private relations or Uyghur labor agents. Cotton planters prefer hiring Uyghur migrants, merely because they can reduce the cost of travel expenses that are paid for Uyghur migrants, though the salary of Uyghur migrants is basically the same as that of Han migrants. In this sense, hiring Uyghur migrants in Xinjiang's cotton fields definitely is market-driven employment, unrelated to "forced labor." These facts debunk the accusation appearing in Zenz (2020b) that the Chinese government has deliberately impeded the development of machine-based cotton harvesting in order to compel the Uyghurs to conduct heavy cotton picking work. The varying degree of mechanization among Xinjiang's cotton production probably is closely related to the unbalanced developmental status of agrarian capitalization in Xinjiang-- this exact problem is worth discussing further yet but will not be thoroughly analyzed in this article. In short, the labor demand of Uyghur seasonal cotton pickers in south Xinjiang is largely decided by its relatively low degree of agricultural capitalization, not due to the 'special treatment' towards labor migrants of a certain ethnic minority.
It then goes on discuss how the US has therefore not provided sufficient factual basis for its allegations of forced labor or (or compulsory birth control, but that is unrelated to my edit) before ending the section. JArthur1984 ( talk) 14:52, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The use of the contentious topics procedure has been authorised by the community for pages related to Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide, including this page. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be sanctioned. |
![]() |
Wikipedia is not censored. Images or details contained within this article may be graphic or otherwise objectionable to some readers, to ensure a quality article and complete coverage of its subject matter. For more information, please refer to Wikipedia's content disclaimer regarding potentially objectionable content and options for not seeing an image. |
This article has next to no information on the Xinjiang cotton industry, and it devotes an inordinate amount of space towards accusations of forced labor. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:50, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Why does this article exist? If it is about the history of the cotton industry in Xinjiang then it probably shouldn't exist as no other country or region has their own article about their cotton industry, and relevant information should be in this article(or a new article broadly on the history of Cotton in China, though I feel that article would be unwarranted): /info/en/?search=China_Cotton_Association
If it is about allegations of forced labour by Uyghurs in the Xinjiang cotton industry, it should be here: /info/en/?search=Xinjiang_internment_camps#Forced_labor
Either way, there is no reason for this article to exist, it's information should be contained in one of the above articles. The scope of this issue is too narrow to warrant more than a paragraph or two on a broader article. BSMRD ( talk) 17:58, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
The section now titled "Forced labor" should be titled "Allegations of forced labor", in order to conform with NPOV. Controversial allegations - especially serious allegations of this nature - should not be put in Wikivoice. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 20:29, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
appear to raise a high risk of coercion(emphasis added). The BBC article also notes that rural labor transfer programs are common in China, and that they are used as part of the country's national poverty alleviation campaign:
China has long used the mass relocation of its rural poor - with the stated aim of improving their employment prospects - as part of a national anti-poverty campaign.The BBC article discusses the possibility that there is coercion, but that possibility remains speculative, and the extent of possible coercion is unclear. News reports discussing claims are not the same as news reports making factual statements in their own voice. Please stop mixing up the two. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 09:28, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Positive attitudes toward communism and socialism are at an all-time high in the United States. We have a solemn obligation to expose the lies of Marxism for the naïve who say they are willing to give collectivism another chance. New generations need to confront the reality of Marxism in practice. Socialism is not a kind, humane philosophy. Marxist socialism is the deadliest ideology in history.
Putting unsubstantiated allegations of "large-scale forced labor" into Wikivoice is POV. Edit-warring to keep the Wikivoice statement in the article, after it has been challenged on the talk page (as it has been above) is also troubling. Mikehawk10, please stop trying to force through this language and actually seek consensus here. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
@ Mikehawk10: I'd also ask you to self-revert here: [2]. The Uyghur Human Rights Project was founded using funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, an arm of the US government. When quoting an organization that is closely connected to an interested party (such as the US government, which has a tense geopolitical relationship with China and which has been making accusations of forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang), this must be noted in the text. Simply referring to UHRP as "US-based", when they are in fact funded by the US government, is not sufficient. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 16:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
The page has recently seen an editor boldly add an in-text attribution to describe the Uyghur Human Rights Project as U.S.-funded group. I don't believe that this matches how the group is generally described in coverage of related events by reliable sources, which at the end of the day this page should reflect. None of these sources appear to mention U.S. funding when using quotes from the source. I believe that we should reflect the use of the source in ways that reliable sources do, which appears to generally either be by listing the name of project while noting that it is a rights/advocacy group and/or by saying that it is based in the United States/the District of Columbia. I am reverting the in-text description of the group along these lines, and I am starting a discussion here per WP:BRD.
Sources that refer to the
Uyghur Human Rights Project
|
---|
|
Thought I would open this up to the talk page instead of doing it unilaterally, this title is better IMO as it is in line with all the other articles on Cotton production by country. BSMRD ( talk) 22:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
{{
Cotton production}}
template are named.) If the article is about non-cotton production related industries in Xinjiang it should probably be renamed to "Textile industry in Xinjiang" to match
Textile industry in China and have it's scope expanded.
BSMRD (
talk)
15:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)We had some back-and-forth edits earlier regarding the following paragraph. In particular, there was some confusion about sourcing. These edits are applicable to several different pages. We talked through it on my talk page and @ Horse Eye's Back has asked for further context from the source. I figure it's better to put it here for posterity instead of adding to my talk page.
The edit is:
Academics Zhun Xu and Fangfei Lin write that there is insufficient support for claims of forced labor in Xinjiang. They cite the historic significance of Uyghur agricultural workers as a long-standing labor force for manual cotton harvesting and staffing companies' widespread recruitment of Uyghur workers due to lower travel costs. In their view, "[T]he labor demand of Uyghur seasonal cotton pickers in south Xinjiang is largely decided by its relatively low degree of agricultural capitalization, not due to the 'special treatment' towards labor migrants of a certain ethnic minority.".
The source is Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Policy. This is an academic peer reviewed text, first published in hardback for the European book market by a 300 year old publishing house, Brill Academic Publishing. It is part of of Brills' "Studies in Critical Social Sciences" book series. One editor was confused and thought this was self-published. It's not. Another editor questioned the source because my edition is published by a leftist publishing house, Haymarket books. Haymarket has merely republished the book in soft cover in the US market, as it is doing with all of Brill's "Studies in Critical Social Sciences" series.
Here is further detail on what the source says.
The source is talking about how US charges of human rights violations in Xinjiang fall into two categories: (1) an Uyghur genocide and (2) coercive or forced labor in Xinjiang. (pg. 313). It goes on to discuss the reports of forced labor and how the US acted on those reports to pass sanctions related to the Xinjiang cotton industry (pg. 313-314) (for wiki article context, notice that the reports and sanctions are discussed in these articles already).
Next, the source goes on to discuss historic significance of Uyghur agricultural workers for manual cotton harvesting, and the systemic economic factors why Uyghur's doing this work is result of those economic factors, and not a result of government policies singling out Uyghurs. Those factors include lower travel costs for staffing companies and cotton plantations hiring Uyghur migrants (labor costs are the same) and the lack of agricultural capitalization in the area which requires a high degree of manual agricultural labor. (this discussions extends from pg. 314-316 where it concludes)
Here is part of the discussion on pg. 314. Any typos will be mine:
Rumors of 'forced Uyghur labor' are inconsistent with the history and current situation of the cotton industry and current situation of the cotton industry in Xinjiang. Around 2000, Xinjiang has become China's largest cotton-producing region. Yet, Xinjiang's cotton cultivation at that time was incompatible with the operational requirement of cotton harvesting machines, and a large amount of manpower was urgently demanded during the cotton harvest period. Hundreds of thousands of migrants, thereupon, have moved seasonally from central and eastern provinces into Xinjiang's cotton fields. It should also be noted that the occurrence of Uyghur cotton pickers, as labor migrants in Xinjiang's cotton fields, is not a newly emerging phenomenon. Some news reports suggest that, around 2003, or even earlier, many Uyghur farmers from Hotan or Kashgar have embarked on their migrant journey of working as seasonal cotton pickers in Aksu (Xu et al. 2005). Their motives for seasonal migration varied little from that of Han seasonal cotton pickers from inner provinces, unrelated to forced labor but largely derived from the desire for increasing cash income to maintain or improve their livelihood that has been greatly affected by commodification of subsistence during the process of China's capitalist agrarian changes after 1978. Since the number and scale of Uyghur cotton pickers was much small than those who migrated from inner provinces, they did not receive widespread media coverage and attention. However, it is undeniable that the group of Uyghur cotton pickers has been a key and longstanding labor force for manual cotton harvesting.
Then there are statistics about low rates of agricultural capitalization, including lack of machine harvesting, and persistent demand for manual labor as a result, and getting us into the author's field observations. That goes from pg. 314 and takes us to pg. 315 which was some material worth quoting at length:
[B oth XPCC's companies and private cotton planters in Aksu had widely recruited Uyghur migrants through private relations or Uyghur labor agents. Cotton planters prefer hiring Uyghur migrants, merely because they can reduce the cost of travel expenses that are paid for Uyghur migrants, though the salary of Uyghur migrants is basically the same as that of Han migrants. In this sense, hiring Uyghur migrants in Xinjiang's cotton fields definitely is market-driven employment, unrelated to "forced labor." These facts debunk the accusation appearing in Zenz (2020b) that the Chinese government has deliberately impeded the development of machine-based cotton harvesting in order to compel the Uyghurs to conduct heavy cotton picking work. The varying degree of mechanization among Xinjiang's cotton production probably is closely related to the unbalanced developmental status of agrarian capitalization in Xinjiang-- this exact problem is worth discussing further yet but will not be thoroughly analyzed in this article. In short, the labor demand of Uyghur seasonal cotton pickers in south Xinjiang is largely decided by its relatively low degree of agricultural capitalization, not due to the 'special treatment' towards labor migrants of a certain ethnic minority.
It then goes on discuss how the US has therefore not provided sufficient factual basis for its allegations of forced labor or (or compulsory birth control, but that is unrelated to my edit) before ending the section. JArthur1984 ( talk) 14:52, 30 January 2023 (UTC)