Forced labor claims unfounded

Members of a delegation of UN envoys get manicures at a vocational school in Hotan, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Aug 30, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

Editor's Note: Ajit Singh, a lawyer and journalist, recently wrote in The Grayzone website on the distorted Western media's "forced labor" stories about China. The following are excerpts:

Of late there has been a surge in stories in the Western media accusing China of implementing an oppressive "forced labor" program against the country's Muslims in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The crime China is accused of committing has been called "Xinjiang's new slavery", allegedly involving more than 80,000 laborers and implicating the supply chains of 83 global brands, including Apple, Amazon, Nike, BMW, Gap, Samsung, Sony, and Volkswagen.

But Western news outlets from Foreign Policy to The Washington Post to Democracy Now have relied on a series of questionable studies by purportedly "independent, nonpartisan" think tanks backed by the West's military intelligence apparatus for these reports. Building on the dubious claims that China is detaining millions of Uygur Muslims, these studies argue that "forced labor" is the "next step" in China's "tyrannical campaign "against the Uygurs.

A close look at these reports shows serious biases and credibility gaps as the Western media paints China as the world's worst human rights violator.

The latest allegations seem to be part of a PR blitz escalating Washington's new Cold War rhetoric targeting Beijing. Following the release of these reports, United States Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern said he would introduce a new bill seeking to ban all US imports from Xinjiang on the grounds that those involved forced labor. McGovern is an ardent supporter of the World Uyghur Congress, a US-backed, far-right network seeking to overthrow the Chinese government.

Even putatively progressive news outlets have joined the frenzy, with The Nation and Democracy Now uncritically parroting these studies, while making no mention of their ties with the US and Western governments and military contractors. Furthermore, both these media outlets interviewed members of the World Uyghur Congress-affiliated Uyghur Human Rights Project, while making no mention of their deep ties with the US' regimechange establishment.

The three reports quoted in the recent "forced labor" stories were authored by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Adrian Zenz. While the Western media presented the reports as impartial, a closer look raises serious doubts over their credibility.

On March 1, ASPI published a policy brief, titled "Uyghurs for sale: 'Re-education' forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang".The paper triggered a fresh round of accusations against China in the Western media. While ASPI describes itself as "an independent, non-partisan think tank", it is in fact a right-wing, militaristic outfit founded by the Australian government in 2001 and is funded by the country's Department of Defence.

While the Western public views stories about alleged "forced labor "as shocking journalistic exposés, they are, in fact, the direct products of an orchestrated PR campaign backed by US and some European countries' governments, NATO, and arms manufacturers, all of which stand to benefit handsomely from the intensification of a new Cold War.