CHINESE AUTHORITIES are coercing hundreds of thousands of rural workers to carry out the gruelling labour of handpicking cotton in the heavily Uighur areas of southern Xinjiang province, subjecting them to harsh recruiting, supervision, surveillance and indoctrination. This disturbing practice is disclosed in a new report from Adrian Zenz, who earlier helped bring to light the construction of an archipelago of involuntary internment centres for ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities. The cotton harvest is another window on China’s efforts to erase the Uighurs’ traditional mind-set and ways of life.