Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Thursday published its Annual Report to Congress, which should make for interesting reading not only in Washington, but also in Taipei — in the Presidential Office, the ministries of foreign affairs and national defense, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and elsewhere — especially chapters 5 and 6, which cover Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The commission’s members are not wearing the West’s decades-old blinders — that engagement with China could lead to meaningful reform — but see that Beijing has become a clear threat to democracy not just in Asia, but around the world.

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 set into motion the liberation of slaves from the shackles of forced labor in US cotton plantations. It almost beggars belief that 156 years later, the cotton industry has again become mired in slavery — but this time on another continent, in China’s Xinjiang.

The Wall Street Journal in May reported on forced labor in Xinjiang’s cotton sector, lifting the lid on the industry’s dirty secret and implicating some of the world’s largest fashion brands, including H&M, Esprit and Adidas, in modern-day slavery.