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Chinese prisoner’s ID card apparently found in lining of Regatta coat (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 136 points 9 months ago

You want to know why China is so absurdly cheap for everything? This is part of the reason why. I wonder how many prison mining camps, prison garment/textile camps, etc. Are operating with the sole goal of keeping costs as absolutely rock bottom as possible. China is making a killing by undercutting the global market on costs for just about everything.

[-] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca 40 points 9 months ago

Forced prison labour is the foundation of a number of economies, including the US'. It's explicitly not prohibited in the Constitution.

China can't use prison labour to undercut global markets because they have a smaller prison labour pool than their key economic competitor (the US).

[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 41 points 9 months ago

I don't believe that. Chinas prison stats are around 1.69mil (which is oddly on par with the US - per capita not taken into consideration). However, per the Global Slavery Index, there's an estimated 5.8 million people enslaved there. And we know that there were over 1 million Uyghur Muslims, and we really don't even know the extent to which that is happening either.

I'd be willing to bet that there's a lot more slave/prison labor going over there than even we realize.

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 30 points 9 months ago

In the US, we don't call them slaves. We call them prisoners. That's how we stay off the index.

Never mind that we intentionally arrest specific racial groups more than others, and that the laws are such that you can be arrested for almost anything, including things like "looking suspicious while driving and then resisting arrest."

Slavery never left America. We just decided to start including some poor white people too.

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[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I wouldn't put much stock into statistics coming from the Chinese government.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Do they count extreme work hours as effective slavery? If so, then I wouldn't be surprised at all if China has more "slavery". If not, then you'll have to quantify your numbers as well. If they're including things that are only effectively slavery, then both countries have millions upon millions more than either of those stats, so where the line is drawn makes all the difference.

[-] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 months ago

Company towns are effective slavery.

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[-] SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This post has so many controversial aspects:

There are no real numbers from china, how many people are actually imprisoned or what even means imprisoned. For example the Uyghurs are not Prisoners in Prison but "Citizens in reeducation camps"- what is a lie. Pictures show they are indeed imprisoned . China is fudging these numbers like the economy numbers at a grand scale.
China is able to force people to work in certain regions or cities. They have a complex system on how to channel work by prohibiting living-, healthcare- and pensions-systems to citizens based on their location and citizens need to apply for changes to these systems to be able to work in other regions.
China - as an authoritarian regime - can force every prisoner to work if they deem it useful. The US has different rules for penal labor, but not make prisoners work like china. The US has a much different landscape.
China undercut every good, in every sector (except some high tech sectors) based on their vast (forced) workforce but also in the strategic sense. They act like Uber (or is Uber acting like China?) in the sense, that their strategy in the last 4 decades was to undercut e.g. Steel-Production for their own advances, but also to cripple the industries in the US and the West in general to come out as the sole supplier for these products and services to then control the prices (like Uber). The US Steelworker Industry is practically gone by now. They did the same with raw-materials and lately with Solar, where they undercut the European (German) markets, to cripple it and control the production/income/spread.

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[-] TWeaK@lemm.ee 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Instead, China uses their prison population to bolster their organ transplant market.

Edit: I wonder if the people who downvoted realise that China admitted they had been harvesting organs from prisoners but claimed it was voluntary and that they were stopping. Meanwhile, the exponential growth of their transplant industry continued beyond 2014.

[-] Historical_General@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I'm hearing this happens with the bodies of Palestinians as well.

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[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago

Cool, I was just thinking the answer to this problem was either 'both sides' or 'what about'.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Meanwhile, the price of products of prison labour in Germany. About the best grills you can get, anywhere, period. All 2mm stainless, well thought through design (removable rods!), excellent craftsmanship.

Don't get me wrong though prisoners still earn a pittance, anything under 2 Euros/hour has just been declared definitely unconstitutional -- that's raw, untaxed wage though without deduction for any costs, a day of prison costs the state something like 120 Euros and those grills sell like hotcakes even at those prices so why would the state lower prices.

What you should definitely look at in this context is, two things: First, where the money is flowing: Are the prisons hiring out prisoners at a pittance allowing private companies to reap profit still burdening society with the full costs of lockup -- or, worse, the profits exceeding the lockup costs and prisoners not seeing a cent of that excess. That's called straight-up slavery, no ambiguity or grey zone to be had there. Secondly, whether the prisoners actually and truly benefit -- and I don't really mean in monetary terms (though if you go poor to prison you definitely shouldn't go out indebted, that's bad policy), but in terms of being able to get a proper and dignified job afterwards: Mindlessly folding cardboard boxes which a machine could do for cheaper if it wasn't for the fact that you're earning a cent an hour vs. to wit above, people becoming skilled metalworkers. One of those makes recidivism less likely, the other teaches inmates that labour is something no sane person would ever want to do.

[-] lobut@lemmy.ca 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not just China!

QI show about US prisons: https://youtu.be/sHz2Hmq7soo ... so many years ago, so it's slightly out of date.

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[-] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I don't remember what it was called, but I seem to recall there being some sort of documentary or movie or something of the likes about someone here in the US who found a note from a prisoner in their brand new pack of Christmas lights (or some similar holiday product).

Edit: a word.

[-] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

Prisoners prop up global powers.

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[-] piecat@lemmy.world 72 points 9 months ago

Slave labor?

For all we know it could be the exact same thing the US does with our prisoner work programs.

So if we're going to call out China, can we please stop doing it here too?

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[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 44 points 9 months ago

If Regatta was truly committed to zero prison labor and zero slave labor, then they wouldn't have any products made in China.

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 23 points 9 months ago

I was talking to a relative about Temu the other day, "How can they sell shit so cheap? Like, there's got to be slavery involved somewhere."

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[-] 01011@monero.town 23 points 9 months ago

Chinese prison labor bad. Western prison labor good.

[-] poopkins@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Chinese prison labor bad. ~~Western~~ US prison labor good.

ftfy

[-] Rooskie91@discuss.online 15 points 9 months ago

I hope this is all part of some psy opp to fuck with the west. I too hope to find a prize sewn inside my clothes and really recapture that cereal box feeling.

[-] ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

It's that cereal Box feeling Now exclusively with dead ugyhers woop de doo!!!!

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 11 points 9 months ago

Despite feeling uneasy, the woman disposed of the card and “thought nothing more of it”.

Who here would actually throw away the ID?

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The card was found inside a plastic holder embossed with the words: “Produced by the Ministry of Justice prisons bureau.”

The prison identified on the ID card found in the Regatta coat says on its website that it specialises in clothing production and the processing of electronics components.

Last month, the French broadcaster Arte aired a documentary about a handwritten Chinese letter that was found inside a pregnancy test bought in Paris.

The finding in the Regatta coat is unusual in that it identifies a specific individual, which risks repercussions for that person, and did not come with a note.

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for China, said: “Companies have a responsibility to do much more to guarantee their supply chains are free of human rights abuses – wherever they operate in the world.

The mere existence of allegations of forced or compulsory labour must at a minimum alert companies to the risk of having links to these abuses.”

The original article contains 1,008 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023

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