How cotton is really made in Xinjiang

This is not a political piece. It’s not my intention to discuss ideology and political philosophy. Nor is it my purpose to argue for either government’s view. The motivation of this article is only to provide an authentic cultural and societal perspective of the story.

As a former global macro investor, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned was not to just rely on the numbers on the Bloomberg terminal from your New York office or the conclusions from research papers you read from London. The most important part is always the evidences from the local trips you take to Shanghai, Bogota, or Lagos and the meetings you have with people on the ground.

In the past 2–3 years since the China-US trade war started, there have been many mainstream media, think-tank, and publications talking about the Xinjiang issue. Some comments were made by the opinion leaders that I have always respected and even known on a personal level. However, whatever evidence they cited, I have always taken it with a grain of salt. It’s not that I don’t trust their integrity, but I always recall the satellite images the US government presented to the House and Senate about the alleged mass-destruction weapons in Iraq — they all looked very legit and convincing, but it turned out to be rather embarrassing (for the Americans) and tragedic (for the Iraqi civilians).