Foreign Clothing Brand "Touch Porcelain" Xinjiang Cotton Clip So-Called Human Rights Signboard Can "Bounce" It?

In October 2020, Swedish clothing brand H & M published a statement on its official website in October 2020, which was widely spread on Weibo recently. The statement was falsely called "H & M group's statement on Xinjiang due diligence". The group was "deeply concerned" about reports from civil society organizations and media reports, including Xinjiang Ethnic minorities in the Uygur Autonomous Region have put forward so-called "forced labor" and "religious discrimination".

On the 25th, relevant departments and associations, including the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of foreign affairs, the China Consumer Association and the China Cotton Association, also responded to the incident of H & M and other multinational brands "touching porcelain" in Xinjiang cotton. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of foreign affairs has repeatedly clarified the facts and the truth on a number of occasions regarding the existence of "forced labor" in Xinjiang.

At a regular press conference held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 25th, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said that Xinjiang's cotton is one of the best in the world and does not need to be the loss of relevant enterprises; the accusation of "forced labor" in Xinjiang is a malicious lie concocted by individual Anti China forces, aiming to discredit China's image, undermine Xinjiang's security and stability, and curb China's development Exhibition. "To provide more employment opportunities for the people, including ethnic minorities, is a good thing for ordinary people, because it can make people live a better and better life," Hua said. But some people think it is forced labor or dark oppression. Why? Because they have been doing this for hundreds of years in their own history, they are now living on their own. "

Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, also said that the so-called "forced labor" in Xinjiang is totally illusory. The pure cotton in Xinjiang can not be tarnished by any force. We are opposed to any external force interfering in Xinjiang affairs and China's internal affairs, and we are opposed to imposing sanctions on relevant Chinese entities and individuals on the pretext of the so-called human rights issue in Xinjiang Based on lies and false information. "The Chinese government has always welcomed and supported the normal business activities of multinational enterprises in China and their efforts to build an industrial chain and supply chain," Gao said. Chinese consumers have responded to the so-called business decisions made by individual enterprises based on false information. It is hoped that the relevant enterprises will respect the market rules, correct the wrong practices and avoid politicization of commercial problems. At the same time, we welcome foreign enterprises to visit Xinjiang on the spot, and are willing to provide support and help for foreign enterprises to carry out trade and investment in Xinjiang. "

The China Consumer Association pointed out that such practices by individual international trade organizations and multinational enterprises have seriously harmed the feelings of Chinese consumers and infringed upon their legitimate rights and interests. The Chinese Consumer Association opposes falsification of facts, restriction of purchase and discrimination of supply, which infringes on consumers' right to choose terminal consumer goods made of high-quality raw materials and products; it opposes selling commodities in China and making profits, but it damages Chinese consumers' national feelings and personal dignity.

According to the latest data released by China Cotton Association, Xinjiang is the largest cotton producing area in China, with an annual output of about 5 million tons, accounting for more than 80% of domestic cotton production. More than 50% of the farmers in Xinjiang grow cotton, and more than 70% of them are ethnic minorities. Cotton has become the main income source of local farmers in Xinjiang, especially in Hotan, Aksu, Kashi and other Uygur areas in southern Xinjiang. Cotton planting income has accounted for more than 80% of the total agricultural income.

According to the data of Xinjiang agricultural and rural department, the cotton mechanical picking rate in Xinjiang has reached 69.83% in 2020, of which 95% of cotton in Northern Xinjiang is mechanically picked, and the mechanization rate of cotton harvesting in southern Xinjiang is also increasing year by year. At present, it is the sowing season of cotton, and cotton planting in Xinjiang is pushed from south to North in turn. It is estimated that the sown area of local areas (excluding XPCC) will be about 21 million mu, and the sown area of machine picked cotton will exceed 16 million mu. More than 8 million mu of cotton in Xinjiang production and Construction Corps basically adopts the mode of machine picking cotton, so that the whole process of mechanization can be realized from planting to harvesting.

After the spring equinox, with the warm weather, Kuqa City, an important town in southern Xinjiang, took the lead in sowing 1.55 million mu of cotton.

On March 24, in shounute village, Yaha Town, Kuqa City, 780 high-powered tractors, guided by the Beidou navigation system, carried out unmanned precision sowing on 1000 mu cotton fields.

Kuerban tohuti, a resident of shounute village, is an expert in farming. He contracted 30000 mu of land in the form of land transfer through cooperatives and planted cotton. He said that he is now seizing the agricultural time to speed up the sowing progress, "about 2000 mu of seeds have been sown, and we plan to finish all the rest before April 5."

Yaha town is a major cotton planting town in Kuqa city. The cotton planting area will be expanded to 280000 mu in 2021. In order to solve the problem of labor shortage, Yaha town has vigorously implemented the mode of machine picking cotton on the basis of many years of pilot projects. In this way, mechanized operation can be implemented from spring planting, summer management to autumn harvest, and a lot of manpower and cost can be saved. Tuniazi yahefu, a member of the Party committee of Yaha Town, said: "this year, the cotton planting area in Yaha town is 280000 mu, of which 265000 Mu is machine picked cotton, which is a unified variety in the whole city. In 2021, our cotton must be sown before April 15. "

It is understood that in 2021, 1.55 million mu of cotton will be sown in Kuqa City, Xinjiang, including 1.25 million mu of machine picked cotton. It is expected that all sowing work will be completed before May 1. Not only Kuqa City, the whole Aksu region and even the five prefectures of Southern Xinjiang are vigorously promoting the machine picking cotton mode.

When it comes to the Xinjiang cotton incident of H & M and other international brands, we have to mention the organization behind the event: BCI for short, which means better cotton initiative. In short, if cotton textiles want to go to the international market, they can't get around BCI certification. Because of this so-called certification, we can gain more recognition in the international market. BCI requires its members to use cotton that they believe meets the standards in order to obtain BCI licenses.

However, the so-called BCI certification is not "quality certification", but standards focusing on such areas as decent work of cotton farmers, protection of water resources and soil health. Therefore, the organization fabricated the lie of "forced labor" in Xinjiang cotton production, and H & M and other international clothing brands, as members of BCI, decided to "stop using Xinjiang cotton" based on BCI's judgment and some folk and media reports. Why can BCI certification say something about Chinese cotton?

At present, China has become the world's largest clothing production and export country. According to the statistics of China Customs, China's textile and garment exports will reach 296.23 billion US dollars in 2020. With its high-quality products and services, China has become the most reliable purchasing base for global textile and garment import enterprises. Chinese textile and garment products, including Xinjiang, are welcomed by consumers from all over the world.

However, a person in charge of a clothing fabric production enterprise told reporters that the textile and garment industry has been suffering from BCI certification for a long time. Because brand owners including H & M require suppliers to provide BCI certificate when making cotton products, suppliers can only do so, otherwise they will be rejected or even replaced. "If you don't have this threshold, you can't take the order," the person in charge said. Our difficulty is here, because the end customer requires us to provide BCI certification. Foreign brands include H & M, Zara, etc. you can only provide this certificate as long as you make his order. Or you don't make cotton and make other varieties. "

In the view of this person in charge, if you want to join BCI certification, you need to meet certain threshold and then pay for training. If they do not meet the requirements, they can also spend money to buy "quotas" from enterprises that meet the certification requirements, which is simply "paying for certification". One of the reasons why this "small" certification can be promoted is that the brand side has grasped the market discourse power. "The key to the problem is that the brand side forces BCI certification because it controls the buyer's market and the supply chain can't do this standard, so there is no order to do it," the person in charge said

The person in charge said that if you want to get rid of BCI certification, the ideal situation is that large domestic cotton mills and textile mills can actively participate in the withdrawal of BCI certification. When everyone does not play this set, foreign buyers have no choice but to ignore these restrictions.

China Cotton Association said that for a long time, cotton farmers, textile workers and other ordinary workers from China have made great contributions to the prosperity and development of the world's cotton textile industry and deserve to be treated fairly. Rough crackdown will not only directly harm the most vulnerable groups in the industrial chain - millions of cotton farmers and textile workers in Xinjiang, but also seriously damage the interests of textile and clothing consumers, retailers, distributors and importers in various countries, and ultimately harm the stability and prosperity of the world's textile and clothing supply chain and industry chain.