BCI claimed that “forced labor” and other “human rights violations” occurred in Xinjiang and therefore suspended the issuance of licenses in Xinjiang.
BCI members such as H&M and Nike also issued statements under pressure. Now, one year later, these statements have been rediscovered by Chinese netizens, sending “Xinjiang cotton” to the forefront. It’s a belated hit.
However, before that, a “Cotton Princess” had stood up single-handedly to challenge European and American brands, saying to these brands “Do you like it or not?”
Tough on the United States! The rich woman behind Xinjiang cotton can’t hide anymore! Her name is Yang Minde, and she and her Esquel Group have used actions to defend Xinjiang cotton for more than 20 years.
01
In the public opinion storm of “Xinjiang Cotton”, the domestic brand Li Ning has become a hot search.
Some people discovered that Li Ning has always written on the label that it uses Xinjiang cotton – “The fabric is made of high-quality long-staple cotton from Xinjiang, combined with unique weaving techniques to give the fabric excellent performance.” .
It is clear that the loyal fans of Xinjiang cotton are friendly forces. This wave of operations has increased many people’s favorability towards Li Ning, making it the most popular product at the moment under the halo of domestic products. One of the brands.
However, few people know that the logo below the black label of Li Ning’s “Xinjiang Cotton” is actually the trademark of its supplier Esquel Group.
As one of the world’s largest cotton textile and apparel manufacturers, Esquel’s products are mainly exported to the United States, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and other places.
It can be said that Yang Minde, the head of Esquel, is the biggest behind-the-scenes hero for Li Ning’s hot search for “Xinjiang Cotton”.
Since 1995, Esquel has purchased, planted and researched long-staple cotton in Xinjiang. High-quality Xinjiang long-staple cotton has also become Esquel quality important guarantee.
“From the past, present, and into the future, we will always insist on using high-quality Xinjiang long-staple cotton as raw materials, and our determination to protect Xinjiang long-staple cotton will not change.”
After fully taking over Esquel, Yang Minde did two surprising things.
The first is to build a factory in Xinjiang, and the second is to restore long-staple cotton species in Xinjiang.
These two things cost her 100 million US dollars, which was something that even the veterans of the textile industry at that time could not imagine.
After arriving in Xinjiang, she began to build a modern spinning factory in Xinjiang and established a cooperative farm with the Production and Construction Corps to specialize in growing high-quality long-staple cotton.
Queue up to Esquel’s cotton fleet
Cotton purchase season, Esquel needs to withdraw millions of cash from banks every day and transport it to the factory.
For the sake of safety, the company also found a professional banknote security company to escort the cash. The cotton farmers who were able to receive the money on site smiled happily, and there was an endless stream of people selling cotton to Esquel.
For more than 20 years, Esquel has always insisted on two things, which is to protect Xinjiang long-staple cotton and never make “white slips”.
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Although Li Ning was on the hot search this time, The low-key Esquel and the “Cotton Princess” behind it are still unknown to many people.
In fact, long before the “Xinjiang cotton” public opinion controversy, Esquel’s Xinjiang subsidiary was sanctioned by the US Department of Commerce.
The cause was a report published by the “Wall Street Journal” mentioning that Esquel hired Uyghur employees; the Australian Strategic Policy Institute published a report titled “Uyghurs for Sale” It was mentioned in the article that Esquel participated in a job fair held in Zhaosu County, Xinjiang.
From this point of view, as long as Esquel hires Uyghur employees, it will cause “forced labor” and “violation of human rights.” Isn’t it ridiculous?
To this day, Esquel’s official website still retains this “Clarification of False Allegations Regarding Its Xinjiang Operations” – every employee is treated equally and respected, and all employees Equal pay for every job.
Yang Minde visits employees’ families
In the 25 years since Yang Minde entered Xinjiang, Esquel has established 7 cotton spinning companies in Xinjiang with more than 1,300 employees, and the proportion of ethnic minority employees exceeds 40%.
At Esquel, there has never been so-called “forced labor” or “human rights violations”. Regardless of ethnicity or gender, the average salary of employees is two to three times the local minimum wage. .
In 2019, “People’s Daily”, “Guangming Daily” and other media went to Turpan Esquel to interview. An employee told reporters: “I now have an income of more than 5,000 yuan per month, and my family I bought a house and a car, and I had the final say at home because my salary was higher than my husband.”
The same goes for what BCI accused of “70% of cotton in Xinjiang being picked manually.” The child is nothing.
In fact, Xinjiang’s cotton industry has already broken away from traditional work methods that rely heavily on manual labor, and has already adopted a large number of machines and intelligent equipment.
In fact, in addition to the cotton industry using a large number of smart equipment and machines, in clothing production, Esquel invests 200 million yuan every year to introduce lean automation. And it proposed to achieve sales of 5.5 billion yuan this year. Only one shirt is made in 40 years, and one shirt is produced every 9 seconds on average.
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Producing more than 100 million shirts a year, it is One of the world’s largest shirt manufacturers in terms of production volume, what does this traditional clothing giant rely on?
Textiles and clothing belong to the traditional manufacturing industry. From manual to automated, many hurdles of technological innovation must be overcome. Taking the production of a woven cotton shirt as an example, the traditional method requires 54 processes. Through the automated garment production equipment independently developed by Esquel Group EE, more than 30 processes have been automated, with an automation coverage rate of 65%. Similarly, to produce a knitted cotton POLO shirt, the traditional method requires 25 processes, but 7 processes have been automated, with an automation coverage rate of 28% and an automation coverage rate of 76%.
All production automation transformation is inseparable from the application of technology and the cultivation of talents. Talent strategy has become a very important part of Esquel Group’s sustainable development strategy.
What is the plan behind Esquel’s bold initiative? </p
