[War & Business] Cotton and Human Rights

In October last year, cotton harvesting at a cotton farm in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. [Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] As the United States launches a global boycott of cotton produced in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, cotton has emerged as a new axis in the US-China conflict. While the US cites human rights issues in China as the rationale, considering China's share in the global cotton market, it is analyzed that complex interests lie behind this move.

The Tarim Basin, located within Xinjiang Uygur, is the world's largest cotton-producing area, producing more than 5 million tons of cotton annually. Even in China, the world's number one cotton producer, 80% of the total production comes from this region. All this cotton is sent to textile factories concentrated in Guangdong Province in southern China, where it is transformed into clothing, which then crosses over to Europe or the US, where brand logos are added to become luxury apparel.

The US criticizes this abundant yet cheap cotton production in Xinjiang Uygur as resulting from low-wage forced labor carried out in China's detention camps. It claims that China dominates the global cotton market by exploiting this labor force to achieve high productivity and low prices.

However, the Chinese government strongly opposes these US human rights allegations. They argue that most of the issues raised by the US have also been pointed out in other developing countries and that this is not a problem unique to China. In fact, India, Southeast Asia, and several African countries have repeatedly faced human rights issues in cotton production.

In fact, criticism that the entire cotton industry process is stained by low wages and labor exploitation has continued since the 19th century. Large amounts of low-wage labor are required to meet production costs, and since child and female labor are heavily involved in spinning operations, human rights issues have always been raised. Even in the US, the black slavery system, which was a cause of the Civil War, began on southern cotton plantations.

Some also focus on the political interests intertwined with cotton in the US. Farms in the US South, a key Republican stronghold, are very sensitive to this issue as their farm incomes have decreased due to the influx of cheap Chinese cotton.

The previous Trump administration encouraged planting corn for bioethanol instead of cotton, but with the drop in oil prices, income compensation became difficult. The Biden administration is also in a position where it cannot ignore the voices of these voters who influence election outcomes.

While various issues tangled like threads in cotton remain unresolved, the indigenous Uygur people are suffering from rapid desertification of the soil caused by cotton. Cotton plants, a tropical crop that rapidly depletes land and requires vast amounts of water, are being planted on a large scale, causing the desert area in this region to gradually expand. This is also why China's yellow dust has recently been crossing the West Sea more frequently.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.