Why is This Happening?
Key Points
An enormous and multi-faceted system of forced labor exists in the Uyghur Region for several interrelated reasons:
Control: The PRC government is anxious about its authority in the region, and forced labor is a way of controlling the population.
Racism: People across China harbor a virulent racism against the Uyghur and other minoritized people of the region that relies on a notion that the people are lazy, backward, and radicalized, and thus need to be transformed through labor.
Ideology: The PRC government does not accept Uyghur traditional forms of work and farming as legitimate and seeks to “develop” the region by forcing them all to work in factories.
Cost: With wages rising for workers across China, low or unpaid Uyghur workers provide legions of laborers to fill the country’s labor gap.
There are other contributing factors in the growth of manufacturing in the region that are not sufficient explanations for forced labor but are relevant to the issue. The Uyghur Region’s geographic proximity to Europe and other markets makes it a powerful hub for manufacturing and the exploitation of its natural resources brings production costs down.