Well for one, they rely on figures from Chinese reporting, which I assume you wouldn't trust. These are propaganda articles for domestic consumption after all, and according CCP propaganda logic, would be over inflated to look good. Many of the transfers in the appendix do not mention prisoners or transfers in the re-education camps, merely people were given jobs as part of poverty alleviation program with much higher wages in exchange for brainwashing on the side - i.e. they're migrant labors. There's always been huge migrant worker movement in China from to industrial and manufacturing cities where pay is higher and for Uygher workers general mistreatment due to cultural differences, Shaoguan factory riot was what sparked the 2009 Urumqi riots that caused the crackdown in the first place. I'm sure there's coercive assignments going on, but the paper seems to conflate all sources as so. And ultimately they crawled through Chinese news sources and found a pool of 80,000 workers over 2 years of which some could have came directly from the camps. That's 0.03% of Chinese migrant working labour force, 0.07% of Chinese manufacturing force - aka rounding error, but somehow this small percentage, where an even smaller % is alleged coerced, tainted the supply chain of 87 of the largest western companies because this is definitely not spinning a relatively minor issue into the western companies should disengage with China narrative. If anything this report illuminates that the "vocational" training element of the entire XJ strategy barely exists, and the question is why? Because of all the heavy handed cultural genocide strategies employed in XJ right now, indoctrination through economic development is the least bad.
>Well for one, they rely on figures from Chinese reporting, which I assume you wouldn't trust. These are propaganda articles for domestic consumption after all, and according CCP propaganda logic, would be over inflated to look good.
- Don't trusting it, does not equal dismissing the entire data, rather analysing it with an extra bit of salt. It means that the situation is probably even worse, because as you yourself said, one can expect it to be 'over inflated to look good'.
> Many of the transfers in the appendix do not mention prisoners or transfers in the re-education camps, merely people were given jobs as part of poverty alleviation program with much higher wages in exchange for brainwashing on the side - i.e. they're migrant labors.
Now you're just parroting CCP propaganda and omitting facts of the research:
"The ILO lists 11 indicators of forced labour. Relevant indicators in the case of Uyghur workers may include:
-being subjected to intimidation and threats, such as the threat of arbitrary detention, and being monitored by security personnel and digital surveillance tools
-being placed in a position of dependency and vulnerability, such as by threats to family members back in Xinjiang
having freedom of movement restricted, such as by fenced-in factories and high-tech surveillance
-isolation, such as living in segregated dormitories and being transported in dedicated trains
abusive working conditions, such as political indoctrination, police guard posts in factories, ‘military-style’ management, and a ban on religious practices
-excessive hours, such as after-work Mandarin language classes and political indoctrination sessions that are part of job assignments.26
Chinese state media claims that participation in labour transfer programs is voluntary, and Chinese officials have denied any commercial use of forced labour from Xinjiang. However, Uyghur workers who have been able to leave China and speak out describe the constant fear of being sent back to a detention camp in Xinjiang or even a traditional prison while working at the factories..."
>I'm sure there's coercive assignments going on, but the paper seems to conflate all sources as so.
Rather nit-picky or what evidence do you rely on making that judgment, except your own highly biased opinion.
> And ultimately they crawled through Chinese news sources and found a pool of 80,000 workers over 2 years of which some could have came directly from the camps. That's 0.03% of Chinese migrant working labour force, 0.07% of Chinese manufacturing force - aka rounding error, but somehow this small percentage, where an even smaller % is alleged coerced, tainted the supply chain of 87 of the largest western companies because this is definitely not spinning a relatively minor issue into the western companies should disengage with China narrative. If anything this report illuminates that the "vocational" training element of the entire XJ strategy barely exists, and the question is why?
They found 'a' pool of 80000, so there are probably even more the researchers couldn't find, with all the effort the CCP puts into hiding their atrocities.
That is furthermore just a plainly disgusting attempt to sweep the exploitation of 80000 'workers' (the real number is probably even higher, not that it needs to be, this is already product of systemic abuse of human rights, also correction: - FORCED labour i.e. slave labour) under the rug, by deceptively belittling the figures playing number's game. The irony is that you are accusing the researchers of 'bias', while your apologetic rhetoric is the ultimate manifestation of bias.
>Because of all the heavy handed cultural genocide strategies employed in XJ right now, indoctrination through economic development is the least bad.
This is a rather bizarre statement, the cultural genocide is incorporated as part of the indoctrination! It's in the research, if you read it properly that is.
Over-inflated in this context is local governments would be incentivized to report that more workers were recruited under poverty alleviation scheme, so the actual number of workers would be lower i.e. local officials are inflating stats to meet quotas. The researchers associates the ILO list, 1 article of transfer from 1 actual reeducation camp, uses the testimonial of a few workers (from Bitter Winter no less) and tries to conflate this to all 80k workers. They have no idea how much is migrant labor vs forced labor. Again, only the most biased and agenda-ed reading would conclude it was all forced labor. Just like the original XJ camp estimates by Zenz based off bidding information, geospatial analysis extrapolated from 50k to 4million to whatever fits the needs of western propaganda. The Chinese system is opaque, the data can be massaged to fit any narrative, which is why the agendas of those that make these claims need to be considered. The fact that the researchers collated all this data (which ASPI is very good at) but still had to massage the narrative through dubious associations (which ASPI has been frequently criticized over), and still only found 80k workers is indicative that that the XJ campaign has scaled down - the original XJ poverty alleviation program called for 400k workers if memory serves. But ASPI isn't going to announce that data indicates China has actually reduced the scale of repression. ASPI is characteristic of the sensationalist extreme analysis for anyone who follow reporting on Chinese issues over the last decade. You need to understand the researcher's bias to contextualize the research.
