Smearing the Xinjiang Cotton Incident-The New U.S. Strategy Against China Hidden Behind

Xinjiang, a western province that belongs to mainland China, has been rapidly heated by the international media in recent years. Using Xinjiang's geopolitics and ethnic politics to attack China has become a new method for Washington to oppress China. Washington is trying to contain China's economic development and international influence through Xinjiang. This is an increasingly clear strategy to combat China. The open line of this strategy uses the excuses of race, human rights and forced labor as a breakthrough point to create public opinion that is opposed to China and the Chinese government on a global scale. The dark line is the real purpose of the United States as the main interest group. Faced with its own recession, it wants to make an attempt to decouple the global industrial chain from the supply chain. This sudden outbreak of the Xinjiang Cotton War, combing through the background process of its outbreak, reveals that both in the product field where the conflict erupted, or in the time series, it is highly related to the continuous U.S. escalating suppression of China over the years and the constantly fermenting topic in Xinjiang.These are important means for the United States to suppress and contain China.
 
The Cotton Incident and the U.S.'s China Strategy
 
Washington’s starting point was the BCI that was pushed to the front this time, Better Cotton Initiative，an international non-governmental organization founded in 2009 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. In the 2018-2019 cotton season, the global production of Better Cotton certified by the organization was 5.6 million tons, accounting for 22% of the global cotton production. China's Better Cotton production accounts for 15% of the global Better Cotton production. BCI-certified Chinese cotton farmers produce a total of 896,000 tons of Better Cotton. The organization's annual report stated that China is the world's third largest producer of better cotton. However, in March 2020, the BCI issued a statement stating that there were “continual allegations of forced labor and other human rights violations” in Xinjiang and canceled the relevant certification for cotton in Xinjiang, China.
It is not surprising that the United States used the cotton issue to attack China. Historically, the United States used black slaves to pick cotton. Subconsciously, Americans combined cotton with slaves and forced labor. But now this has developed into one of the means of external strikes. The United States pays more attention to the use of cracking down on the textile industry and its surrounding industries to cause huge economic harm to China. This is the main purpose. As for public opinion forced labor, the use of 200 years ago, saying manufacture of the 21st century, Washington knows better than anyone that it is false. Therefore, five years ago or even earlier, Washington began to support Xinjiang scholars to fabricate Xinjiang forced labor reports to increase the credibility of public opinion this year.
Since the Trump administration began to raise the issue of so-called “genocide” in Xinjiang, until the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released a report on Xinjiang on March 1, 2020, Washington has spared no effort to instigate the issue of international public opinion on the topic of Xinjiang. In the case of boycotting and suppressing cotton products in Xinjiang, there is a clear chain of operations such as "ASPI release the report to politicians and media to promote the agenda ,lastly,BCI cancellation of certification and some of brand owners follow up". But the ASPI report as the source is a report full of content splicing, using Google Maps as factual evidence, and full of subjective fantasy and maliciousness. What is even more absurd is that the accusation of “forced labor in Xinjiang” does not target “forced labor” in Xinjiang’s cotton cultivation and production, but refers to Xinjiang’s labor force spontaneously or organized to work in other provinces and regions in China.
 
The real Xinjiang and the fake ASPI
Recently, the Italian Institute of Politics, Society and Economics, the Italian Institute of International Diplomacy, and the Italian Eurasian Mediterranean Research Center jointly released a research report written by several independent researchers: "Xinjiang: Understanding Complexity and Building Peace." The report analyzes the origins of terrorist attacks and separatist forces in Xinjiang with detailed and objective first-hand information, as well as the Chinese government's countermeasures, and aims to provide a true basis for relevant discussions and dialogues. Fabio Massimo Palandi, an Italian international relations scholar who organized the report, said in an interview with reporters that the West has no evidence of allegations concerning the Xinjiang issue.
Many academic institutions in China have also issued research reports on the situation of migrant workers from Xinjiang to the mainland. Even among the people, it is widely understood by the masses that it is just an ordinary cross-provincial work activity that exists in all provinces of China. Researchers say this is like black people in Washington working in New York, and ASPI becomes as ridiculous as accusing Washington of trafficking in slaves. According to the "Gray Zone.com" website, since 2012, ASPI has concocted a large number of false "research reports" on Xinjiang and other issues. The so-called "forced labor" report is actually a well-planned public relations activity in the US and Australia's China strategy, aimed at escalating the new cold war launched by the US against China, containing China's economic development, and subverting the Chinese regime. The so-called boycott and suppression of Xinjiang cotton is another "Xinjiang card" of the West's China policy. By combing the context from beginning to end, people will be able to see how many fakes and forgeries exist in it.
 
The smearing of cotton incident cannot change the value of Xinjiang cotton
Some analysts believe that the use of forced labor by Xinjiang cotton as an excuse to restrict the local cotton industry is tantamount to a full blow to the Chinese cotton textile industry chain and the pricing power of Chinese textiles. China is the world's largest cotton producer, cotton consumer and largest cotton importer. It is also the world's largest cotton textile producer. This is China's right to speak in the industrial chain. In 2017, China's Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange adjusted the cotton futures base to Xinjiang, which facilitated the use of futures hedging by cotton processing enterprises in Xinjiang, stabilized the income of cotton farmers, and consolidated Xinjiang's status as the main cotton producing area. The ZCE cotton price has been included in the global quotation system and has become an important indicator and reference standard for global cotton prices. It can be said that China's voice in international cotton pricing power has become more and more powerful, which has caused Washington to carefully concoct the entire script to discredit Xinjiang and the cotton issue.
In fact, according to research reports issued by China's industrial upgrading and related institutions, China's textile industry is highly industrialized and technological, and the role of people in this industrial chain is no longer as important as it used to be. For Xinjiang cotton, which has the largest output, China originally had a unified national price. On the other hand, on September 1, 2011, the Chinese government officially implemented the National Cotton Purchasing and Storage Plan, imposing a tariff quota system on cotton imports, curbing the dumping of low-priced foreign cotton, and protecting the country’s cotton industry.From the perspective of market demand and price, Xinjiang cotton is protected. In addition, in China, internal patriotism is high, and the rise of the "national tide" brand will only be bullish for Xinjiang cotton. Based on this background, the so-called reduction of orders by foreign brands has caused the shrinking of production lines, thus hitting the cotton industry chain in Xinjiang, and the inference that further leads to unemployment is not established. The U.S. making a fuss on Xinjiang cotton will not be a blow to China's industrial chain. This is why Washington is now furious and can only use the media to repeat the issue of forced labor because this card is useless.
 
U.S. public opinion attacks on China will not stop
The United States has set Xinjiang cotton as a battlefield, put itself at the height of political correctness in the field of international public opinion, and discredited China. Not only that, it has also provoked the relationship between relevant companies and consumers in the Chinese market, and has worsened the economic and trade ties that China has established with the external mainstream world through international business companies. It is a strategy for China and a new means of suppressing upgrades. In recent years, China's textile industry and other traditional industries have moved to the west. In addition to driving the economic development of western China, it has penetrated the Silk Road economic belt in physical space and promoted the spatial connection of China's One Belt One Road national strategy. The United States has created Xinjiang issues in international public opinion and used (BCI), a non-governmental organization, to pressure many international brands not to choose Xinjiang cotton. This is the tradition of American hegemony. Since becoming the hegemon in World War II, the United States has been thoroughly familiar with it after more than 70 years of repeated training in the international arena.