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Next time you buy that cheap tee shirt or that shiny new mobile phone....

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  • Next time you buy that cheap tee shirt or that shiny new mobile phone....

    An interesting opinion piece from a British newspaper - and so with a British slant in some of its observations. https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-eye-to-china

    Today’s confrontation with the slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries could puff us up and make us feel better about ourselves were the slave trade of the 21st not thriving. We will remember 2020 for the crowds taking down statues of Confederate generals and English slavers; of Black Lives Matter protests against slavery’s continuing legacy of condemning African Americans to suffer as their country’s lowest caste. [...]

    But it is not a victory for today’s slaves. Forced labour is an essential part of the Chinese state’s programme to humiliate and destroy ethnic minorities. The parallels with the antebellum south reach to the cotton fields. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) runs prison factories and its own paramilitary force to keep its captives in line. It helped create the Chinese cotton industry, which now supplies 20% of the world’s cotton market and, maybe, the clothes on your back. XPCC sends forced labour to pick cotton because no one has ever picked cotton unless poverty or slave masters forced them to. It’s hard to know what is worse: the backbreaking work or the exposure to pesticides.[...]

    No one is more determined to obscure than the corporations that boom out their opposition to racism. Last month, the Washington Post quoted congressional staffers saying Apple was lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would require US companies to guarantee they do not use imprisoned or coerced workers from Xinjiang. The New York Times added that Nike and Coca-Cola were lobbying too. They all condemn forced labour and the ethnic persecution in Xinjiang and, in the words of Apple, say they have “found no evidence of forced labour” on their production lines. Nevertheless, they fear the act’s ambitious requirements could wreck their supply chains in China. [...]

    China prevents journalists and diplomats reporting from Xinjiang except in the most tightly controlled circumstances. Clothing firms once sent auditors to Xinjiang to check forced labour was not in their supply lines. But the authorities started treating them as suspects and they pulled out. Think then about the visible smartphones, smart clothes and smart trainers around you. Do consumers want to know where they come from or have their supply disrupted by prohibitions? [...]

    Like the Atlantic slave trade, forced labour in China can seem too convenient to challenge. It’s one thing to go on a Black Lives Matter demo, another to tear up your phone contract. China, like the old slave power in Britain and America, can seem so strong and so embedded in global patterns of consumption that taking it on feels a doomed enterprise. [...]

    Last week, MPs in the China Research Group recommended that Britain join with Biden’s America and other democracies, not for a cold war, but to ensure basic protections. Included among them was the requirement that “supply chains are free from slave or child labour from political prisoners and persecuted ethnic minorities in China”. Most may still not want to look, but the world has gone past the point when it can pretend slavery is history.


    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

  • #2
    It's sad. The reason it's ignored as a problem is that it has a very big NIMBY component.

    Though, I have to wonder, why there's not a large vocal boycott, divest, and sanction movement against a country employing slave labor.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
      It's sad. The reason it's ignored as a problem is that it has a very big NIMBY component.

      Though, I have to wonder, why there's not a large vocal boycott, divest, and sanction movement against a country employing slave labor.
      If you read the entire article - I only C&P'd snippets that I considered particularly pertinent - you may find an answer.

      However, one section I did C&P refers to how much people actually think about where their phones, smart clothes, or trainers are made, and by whom. I also copied the section about the lobbying of several large American corporations against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, along with their concerns over disruption to supply chains.

      I did omit this paragraph from my OP.

      When I read 18th-century western literature, I am struck by how slavery was so taken for granted that it barely featured in most writers’ work. Notions of racial superiority explain the silence, as does the desire for sugar and cotton clothes and the inability to imagine how Europe might get them if slaves were free.

      The same attitude would appear to hold today with western society's demands for cheap consumer goods including fashion.
      "It ain't necessarily so
      The things that you're liable
      To read in the Bible
      It ain't necessarily so
      ."

      Sportin' Life
      Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

        If you read the entire article - I only C&P'd snippets that I considered particularly pertinent - you may find an answer.

        However, one section I did C&P refers to how much people actually think about where their phones, smart clothes, or trainers are made, and by whom. I also copied the section about the lobbying of several large American corporations against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, along with their concerns over disruption to supply chains.

        I did omit this paragraph from my OP.

        When I read 18th-century western literature, I am struck by how slavery was so taken for granted that it barely featured in most writers’ work. Notions of racial superiority explain the silence, as does the desire for sugar and cotton clothes and the inability to imagine how Europe might get them if slaves were free.

        The same attitude would appear to hold today with western society's demands for cheap consumer goods including fashion.
        That would be the NIMBY problem I talked about.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
          An interesting opinion piece from a British newspaper - and so with a British slant in some of its observations. https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-eye-to-china

          Today’s confrontation with the slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries could puff us up and make us feel better about ourselves were the slave trade of the 21st not thriving. We will remember 2020 for the crowds taking down statues of Confederate generals and English slavers; of Black Lives Matter protests against slavery’s continuing legacy of condemning African Americans to suffer as their country’s lowest caste. [...]

          But it is not a victory for today’s slaves. Forced labour is an essential part of the Chinese state’s programme to humiliate and destroy ethnic minorities. The parallels with the antebellum south reach to the cotton fields. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) runs prison factories and its own paramilitary force to keep its captives in line. It helped create the Chinese cotton industry, which now supplies 20% of the world’s cotton market and, maybe, the clothes on your back. XPCC sends forced labour to pick cotton because no one has ever picked cotton unless poverty or slave masters forced them to. It’s hard to know what is worse: the backbreaking work or the exposure to pesticides.[...]

          No one is more determined to obscure than the corporations that boom out their opposition to racism. Last month, the Washington Post quoted congressional staffers saying Apple was lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would require US companies to guarantee they do not use imprisoned or coerced workers from Xinjiang. The New York Times added that Nike and Coca-Cola were lobbying too. They all condemn forced labour and the ethnic persecution in Xinjiang and, in the words of Apple, say they have “found no evidence of forced labour” on their production lines. Nevertheless, they fear the act’s ambitious requirements could wreck their supply chains in China. [...]

          China prevents journalists and diplomats reporting from Xinjiang except in the most tightly controlled circumstances. Clothing firms once sent auditors to Xinjiang to check forced labour was not in their supply lines. But the authorities started treating them as suspects and they pulled out. Think then about the visible smartphones, smart clothes and smart trainers around you. Do consumers want to know where they come from or have their supply disrupted by prohibitions? [...]

          Like the Atlantic slave trade, forced labour in China can seem too convenient to challenge. It’s one thing to go on a Black Lives Matter demo, another to tear up your phone contract. China, like the old slave power in Britain and America, can seem so strong and so embedded in global patterns of consumption that taking it on feels a doomed enterprise. [...]

          Last week, MPs in the China Research Group recommended that Britain join with Biden’s America and other democracies, not for a cold war, but to ensure basic protections. Included among them was the requirement that “supply chains are free from slave or child labour from political prisoners and persecuted ethnic minorities in China”. Most may still not want to look, but the world has gone past the point when it can pretend slavery is history.

          It's not just the consumers who turn a blind eye to what China does and how they operate

          china-what-you-say-nba-disney-marriott-apple-espn-blizzard-anything-you-want.jpg



          And we have NBA players lecturing us on human rights yet bending the knee to China.

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
            An interesting opinion piece from a British newspaper - and so with a British slant in some of its observations. https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-eye-to-china

            Today’s confrontation with the slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries could puff us up and make us feel better about ourselves were the slave trade of the 21st not thriving. We will remember 2020 for the crowds taking down statues of Confederate generals and English slavers; of Black Lives Matter protests against slavery’s continuing legacy of condemning African Americans to suffer as their country’s lowest caste. [...]

            But it is not a victory for today’s slaves. Forced labour is an essential part of the Chinese state’s programme to humiliate and destroy ethnic minorities. The parallels with the antebellum south reach to the cotton fields. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) runs prison factories and its own paramilitary force to keep its captives in line. It helped create the Chinese cotton industry, which now supplies 20% of the world’s cotton market and, maybe, the clothes on your back. XPCC sends forced labour to pick cotton because no one has ever picked cotton unless poverty or slave masters forced them to. It’s hard to know what is worse: the backbreaking work or the exposure to pesticides.[...]

            No one is more determined to obscure than the corporations that boom out their opposition to racism. Last month, the Washington Post quoted congressional staffers saying Apple was lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would require US companies to guarantee they do not use imprisoned or coerced workers from Xinjiang. The New York Times added that Nike and Coca-Cola were lobbying too. They all condemn forced labour and the ethnic persecution in Xinjiang and, in the words of Apple, say they have “found no evidence of forced labour” on their production lines. Nevertheless, they fear the act’s ambitious requirements could wreck their supply chains in China. [...]

            China prevents journalists and diplomats reporting from Xinjiang except in the most tightly controlled circumstances. Clothing firms once sent auditors to Xinjiang to check forced labour was not in their supply lines. But the authorities started treating them as suspects and they pulled out. Think then about the visible smartphones, smart clothes and smart trainers around you. Do consumers want to know where they come from or have their supply disrupted by prohibitions? [...]

            Like the Atlantic slave trade, forced labour in China can seem too convenient to challenge. It’s one thing to go on a Black Lives Matter demo, another to tear up your phone contract. China, like the old slave power in Britain and America, can seem so strong and so embedded in global patterns of consumption that taking it on feels a doomed enterprise. [...]

            Last week, MPs in the China Research Group recommended that Britain join with Biden’s America and other democracies, not for a cold war, but to ensure basic protections. Included among them was the requirement that “supply chains are free from slave or child labour from political prisoners and persecuted ethnic minorities in China”. Most may still not want to look, but the world has gone past the point when it can pretend slavery is history.

            Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I was aware of the issue with chocolate, the abusive ways children are used to harvest it and that most big name producers of chocolate look the other way. Still hard to avoid the occasional Hershey bar.

            China is especially bad in that they are big, powerful, and have no sense of human rights being of even marginal importance when compared to the goal of increasing the power and influence of their state in the world.

            I just bought a smart trainer for winter, but I think i got lucky in that I went for quality rather than cheap and got one from a US company whose factory is in Taiwan.

            Out of curiosity, is there an organization tracking this sort of thing that one can consult before buying a product? If we can direct our $$$ at those that do not make use of likely slave labor, or in ways that minimize the flow of money to such operations, and if enough of us do it, it might change.
            Last edited by oxmixmudd; 12-07-2020, 09:01 AM.
            My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

            If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

            This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

              Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I was aware of the issue with chocolate, the abusive ways children are used to harvest it and that most big name producers of chocolate look the other way. Still hard to avoid the occasional Hershey bar.

              China is especially bad in that they are big, powerful, and have no sense of human rights being of even marginal importance when compared to the goal of increasing the power and influence of their state in the world.

              I just bought a smart trainer for winter, but I think i got lucky in that I went for quality rather than cheap and got one from a US company whose factory is in Taiwan.

              Out of curiosity, is there an organization tracking this sort of thing that one can consult before buying a product?
              You are right we seldom stop and think. We just see a bargain. It is the same with meat - if it is cheap people often do not stop and think about how the animal was reared and slaughtered.

              The full article mentions the World Uyghur Congress. You could see if they can offer any advice. Alternatively, seek out some Fair Trade/Anti-Slavery organisations
              "It ain't necessarily so
              The things that you're liable
              To read in the Bible
              It ain't necessarily so
              ."

              Sportin' Life
              Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

                It's not just the consumers who turn a blind eye to what China does and how they operate

                And we have NBA players lecturing us on human rights yet bending the knee to China.
                Our selectivity was mentioned by Nick Cohen.

                And we all know that capitalist consumer enterprises are vulnerable to demand. If people do not buy, then markets shrink, and profits fall.
                "It ain't necessarily so
                The things that you're liable
                To read in the Bible
                It ain't necessarily so
                ."

                Sportin' Life
                Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

                  It's not just the consumers who turn a blind eye to what China does and how they operate

                  china-what-you-say-nba-disney-marriott-apple-espn-blizzard-anything-you-want.jpg



                  And we have NBA players lecturing us on human rights yet bending the knee to China.
                  Good point. Again, we can vote with our $$$, and if enough of us make the point, it can change. But how do you convince millions of people to pay a little more or to NOT go see the latest big blockbuster movie that benefitted from Chinese (or other) abuses of forced labor? Or to not watch the big game from a sports organization making compromises to gain access to the Chinese market?
                  My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                  If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                  This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Juvenal started a thread about the treatment of the Uyghur people in China a little over a year ago for those who are interested: In China, every day is Kristallnacht

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I don't know why it is so difficult for many to remember that China is the enemy - not just for the US but for the planet (and I'm not talking about its handling of covid, which is a subject unto itself). It is a tyrannical nuclear power that seeks world economic domination on the backs of slave labor. That much is certain. The question is what to do about it.

                      Trump was applying tariffs to its exports in the hope of weaning US consumers off its cheap products, thereby rerouting corporate manufacturing. That's one option. But it is also dangerous to cripple China because such a country is capable of lashing out in response.

                      So what is the answer?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

                        Good point. Again, we can vote with our $$$, and if enough of us make the point, it can change. But how do you convince millions of people to pay a little more or to NOT go see the latest big blockbuster movie that benefitted from Chinese (or other) abuses of forced labor? Or to not watch the big game from a sports organization making compromises to gain access to the Chinese market?
                        I see what the NBA does as probably the most onerous considering their blatant hypocrisy.

                        The players have been ritualistically kneeling in protest for the national anthem, but they are afraid to endanger their revenue by standing up to China. The NBA has studiously ignored authoritarian crackdowns and ethnic persecution as it built and monetized a huge fan base in China.

                        While players lecture us about freedom and justice they immediately turn around and fly over to China[1] to play where the government tells them they are prohibited from speaking to the media or criticizing the government -- and they meekly comply -- only to return to the U.S. to begin their lecturing again.

                        But not about China. They don't dare.

                        Look at how they reacted when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protesters. The league’s most prominent figures didn't do their usual rush to condemn injustice, instead they either stayed silent or attacked Morey.

                        LeBron James told him "he wasn't educated on the situation at hand, and that he needed to "be careful what we tweet and say and we do" while another one of the league's biggest names, James Harden, issued an apology for Morey's comment. Likewise the NBA immediately began apologized and kowtowing saying that they were "extremely disappointed in Morey's inappropriate statement. No doubt he's severely hurt the feelings of CN fans"






                        1. Can anyone please explain how going off to play basketball in China now is any different than musicians going off to play in South Africa's Sun City back in the 80s when that country was a dictatorship?

















                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                          You are right we seldom stop and think. We just see a bargain. It is the same with meat - if it is cheap people often do not stop and think about how the animal was reared and slaughtered.
                          Yep.

                          Or about the horrible conditions that the actual slaughterhouse workers are subjected to (usually immigrants either documented or not, as well as very poor - usually POC - citizens) - amputations are common, as are illnesses.

                          And it's not uncommon for them to drown in feces - as the animals come in the feces and blood of the animals collects under the slaughterhouse floors, or for that matter just dairy farm facilities - when there is a clog somewhere they are sent to clear it and often there are levels of gas buildup that can render a human unconscious... left to drown in the runoff.

                          Eating meat has many, many victims, both human and non-human.
                          Last edited by Gondwanaland; 12-07-2020, 10:35 AM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                            An interesting opinion piece from a British newspaper - and so with a British slant in some of its observations. https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-eye-to-china

                            Today’s confrontation with the slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries could puff us up and make us feel better about ourselves were the slave trade of the 21st not thriving. We will remember 2020 for the crowds taking down statues of Confederate generals and English slavers; of Black Lives Matter protests against slavery’s continuing legacy of condemning African Americans to suffer as their country’s lowest caste. [...]

                            But it is not a victory for today’s slaves. Forced labour is an essential part of the Chinese state’s programme to humiliate and destroy ethnic minorities. The parallels with the antebellum south reach to the cotton fields. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) runs prison factories and its own paramilitary force to keep its captives in line. It helped create the Chinese cotton industry, which now supplies 20% of the world’s cotton market and, maybe, the clothes on your back. XPCC sends forced labour to pick cotton because no one has ever picked cotton unless poverty or slave masters forced them to. It’s hard to know what is worse: the backbreaking work or the exposure to pesticides.[...]

                            No one is more determined to obscure than the corporations that boom out their opposition to racism. Last month, the Washington Post quoted congressional staffers saying Apple was lobbying against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would require US companies to guarantee they do not use imprisoned or coerced workers from Xinjiang. The New York Times added that Nike and Coca-Cola were lobbying too. They all condemn forced labour and the ethnic persecution in Xinjiang and, in the words of Apple, say they have “found no evidence of forced labour” on their production lines. Nevertheless, they fear the act’s ambitious requirements could wreck their supply chains in China. [...]

                            China prevents journalists and diplomats reporting from Xinjiang except in the most tightly controlled circumstances. Clothing firms once sent auditors to Xinjiang to check forced labour was not in their supply lines. But the authorities started treating them as suspects and they pulled out. Think then about the visible smartphones, smart clothes and smart trainers around you. Do consumers want to know where they come from or have their supply disrupted by prohibitions? [...]

                            Like the Atlantic slave trade, forced labour in China can seem too convenient to challenge. It’s one thing to go on a Black Lives Matter demo, another to tear up your phone contract. China, like the old slave power in Britain and America, can seem so strong and so embedded in global patterns of consumption that taking it on feels a doomed enterprise. [...]

                            Last week, MPs in the China Research Group recommended that Britain join with Biden’s America and other democracies, not for a cold war, but to ensure basic protections. Included among them was the requirement that “supply chains are free from slave or child labour from political prisoners and persecuted ethnic minorities in China”. Most may still not want to look, but the world has gone past the point when it can pretend slavery is history.

                            This is a subject I became much more aware and conscious of in the last couple years. A lot of eye openers that the average person doesnt even think about. They just see cheap stuff and dont think about how that low price was achieved.

                            And what sucks is even if you want to boycott, it is hard as hellto avoid things made in China and other countries that are doing this. Even a lot of stuff made in America can have components from China. All you can do is do your best, and pressure companies like Nike, the NBA, etc. To do the same.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post

                              This is a subject I became much more aware and conscious of in the last couple years. A lot of eye openers that the average person doesnt even think about. They just see cheap stuff and dont think about how that low price was achieved.

                              And what sucks is even if you want to boycott, it is hard as hellto avoid things made in China and other countries that are doing this. Even a lot of stuff made in America can have components from China. All you can do is do your best, and pressure companies like Nike, the NBA, etc. To do the same.
                              For perhaps what is the third or fourth time in our exchanges, we can agree.
                              "It ain't necessarily so
                              The things that you're liable
                              To read in the Bible
                              It ain't necessarily so
                              ."

                              Sportin' Life
                              Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                              Comment

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