Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China
Let me get this straight, seems like if a company uses Uyghur workers they get accused of &quot;forced labor&quot;. Then solution is easy, lets not hire any Uyghur people. No employment Ugyhur people. Then Uyghur people know what happens, they don&#x27;t have income, they stay poor. This is what these people who accuses of Uyghur &quot;forced labor&quot; want? China may not have the best labor laws. But this is 2020, at will employment, employment with pay, is common sense and the absolute basic basic fact supported by law. If you don&#x27;t like the place you work for, if you don&#x27;t want to go out of the province to work, no one, not the police, not the company, will throw you in jail. This is not slave labor. Slaving is just no socially and legally acceptable in China I don&#x27;t see it ever be possible.<p>And let me be fully honest. Some local governments do tie special governmental poverty aids with participation in work programs. As in, you don&#x27;t get certain poverty related aids if you are a able employable person but refuses to participate in a work placement program. But these people will still get standard social program, such as a basic state health insurance. And if the person is non-employable, for example, disabled, elderly, under working age, these don&#x27;t apply.<p>Another possible situation is, a person is work-able, but has no job and has a income level below the absolute poverty standard. Recently the government has a target goal to reduce absolute poverty rates, and the way they do that is try to get every employable person a job so they have income. This transfer work placement is one of the programs. The government work with companies to create work opportunities and get people placed in them. Some people will refuse work just because they don&#x27;t want to. And the government has KPIs and targets to reduce out of work people has much as possible. So government would nag people to join work. And the aforementioned tying these special poverty aids with participation in work placement. But there is no legal consequence for refuses. No one will be able to place you in a jail.<p>So if you say this government is coercion and &quot;forcing&quot; people to work this way, you can say that. But on the other hand, the idea is that people should make a living to support themselves. The government aids is partially interested in encouraging people to make a living on their own terms. A Chinese saying goes &quot;授人以鱼不如授人以渔&quot;.<p>But now, various interest groups, NGOs and countries (US etc) are now painting these companies and China as a country as using forced labor. They are destroying public image, and economically sanctioning. A company could provide jobs for Ugyhur people. And frankly, some goes out of their way to do so because there are so many other people in China these companies could employ. China&#x27;s job market is very competitive.  And now they might lose their business and go bankrupt. And let me tell you that a lot of Han people look at this and think is special preferential treatment towards Ugyhurs. They think why do I not get these work placement programs.<p>I honestly feel this pretty twisted. Yes, there are bad stories in poverty reduction efforts the Chinese government is doing right now. Some local governments use illegal tactics. But the overarching goal is still positive. We as a society could leave people under absolute poverty to feed for themselves, let them stay at absolute bottom of society. But now, we set up and are doing something about it. At least we don&#x27;t just talk the talk, but actually taking concrete actions. Yet, people outside of China is saying this is a &quot;sin&quot;. And use this as an reason to punish China and the people living in the country to death.<p>And how interesting this comes at a time when various countries and interest groups is trying to suppress China&#x27;s economic growth, how limit China&#x27;s economy is the mainstream tone in the media. I don&#x27;t get how actively seeking to destroy a country&#x27;s economy is moral, and how no one comes out and say &quot;hey, this is not right&quot;. Economy is prosperity, is people&#x27;s livelihoods, is people&#x27;s well being, is people&#x27;s ability to enjoy life. Painting an economy as a target and looking for all kinds of tools to destroy it is against all of the above. I always believed people want the best for others, people want others to live a happy, prosperous live. But the foreign policy of the US for the past 2 years, things US political leaders said, media outlet around the world said, destroyed that belief. Hatred is really alive and well in this world. Living breathing people can have so much hatred in them. Some people just want to see others suffer, burn and dead. And some of these people actually hold devastating amount of power that can shape the very lives of people, even if they are small, ordinary people who live literally on the other side of the planet.