The ancients only made clothes from wool or linen until the advent of cotton. The plundering of cotton has never stopped since then. In 498, Portuguese explorers went to India, discovered cotton, and introduced it to Europe. At this time, Britain had completed the enclosure movement, and the wool industry had become a national industry in Britain, and the wool here was wool. At that time, the British high-level had a keen eye, predicted that the future would be the cotton era, and feared that the wool industry would be replaced by cotton, so they joined forces with European countries to ban cotton imports and delay the rise of cotton.
It took India 200 years to bring cotton products to the European market. However, by this time Britain was already the most powerful country in the world, establishing colonies around the world and Colonizing India. However, relying on the low price of cotton, India still wins a quarter of the world cotton trade, which is a very lucrative business. However, India did not think that the good times would not last long. The Industrial Revolution broke out in Britain, and Jenny spinning machines, hydraulic spinning machines, and steam engines came out one after another, improving the production efficiency of the textile industry. As we all know, once the production efficiency is improved, it means that the price of products falls, the price of raw materials plummets, and Indian cotton goes bankrupt one after another.
Britain severely restricted the flow of various textile machines and advanced textile technologies into India, forcing India to become a supplier of raw materials and only make a small profit. However, britain bought cotton at low prices and made clothes to sell all over the world, making huge profits from it. For example, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, British foreign cloth flowed into the mainland, and the mainland textile industry was quickly destroyed. Relying on the textile industry, the United Kingdom quickly became the richest country in the world. Western countries also know from this war that as long as they control the origin of raw materials, they can make a lot of money in trade.
In ancient times, cotton and tea were the main cash crops. In 1607, cotton appeared for the first time in the United States, and the geographical conditions in the United States were very suitable for growing cotton. Soon the Americans made money from cotton and got rid of the British colonies. In 793, the Americans invented the mechanical cotton gin, which solved the problem of picking and seeding. Therefore, the cotton industry in the United States has developed rapidly, and it will soon be able to compete with the Indian Chamber of Commerce. Soon U.S. cotton surpassed Indian cotton. However, growing cotton still requires a large amount of labor. Due to the uneven distribution of slaves in the North and South of the United States, civil war broke out.
The most important thing in this war is the seizure of labor. Grow cash crops such as cotton. In 2009, Western-led countries used the BCF to take action against Azerbaijani cotton, citing forcing locals to work. Yet Azerbaijan is a small country. In 2011, it was forced to make concessions to Europe and the United States, promising European and American multinationals to control the country's cotton and other agriculture, and the sanctions were lifted. In 2010, the United States placed Uzbekistan's cotton and textile products on sanctions lists on the grounds of forced labor. Because the relationship between the two countries was not good at that time. In 2019, the relations between the two countries were reconciled and the sanctions were lifted. In 2018, the United States targeted cotton and cotton textile products in Turkmenistan. The U.S. is all about controlling more cotton-producing areas.
The development of cotton is full of bloody rain and wind. Why does the West attach so much importance to cotton? Do not hesitate to unite against countries. First of all, the textile industry is an industry that does not require much advanced technology and can still make money. At first, European countries, led by britain, were the first to make money from the textile industry made of cotton, and later the textile center moved to the United States. After the United States made money, it became the world leader for a long time, so it began to actively choose industrial transfer and go to places where labor prices were lower to make more money.
First, it moved to Japan, which seized the opportunity for its rapid rise, and then South Korea. The economies of these countries and regions can start, that is, first establish the textile industry, then the textile industry will be transferred to China, and China's foreign trade will begin. You should remember the original textile mills in China. Excluding the coastal and inland, by 2018, China's textile and garment exports totaled 276.73 billion US dollars, 280.71 billion US dollars in 2019, and 291.21 billion US dollars in 2020. For three consecutive years, textile and garment exports accounted for 11% of China's annual exports. It's just an export.
If we count our own internal digestion of textiles, how much economic value can the private textile industry bring? No industry in China can surpass him, except for real estate, which will only prosper for a while. However, the textile industry has flourished since ancient times. Now, the reason why Southeast Asian countries, led by Vietnam, attach so much importance to the textile industry is because they see the know-how of these countries' development. Now the textile and garment industry in the world is firmly controlled by China, the European Union, India and the United States. Now the United States is only the fourth largest textile exporter, accounting for 4.4% of the global market share, so the U.S. textile industry. It is urgent to return to the top position, and the most important thing in the textile and apparel industry is cotton.
India's cotton has lost its threatening cotton source, leaving only China. So as long as the United States and the European Union take the lead in China's cotton, they can control the world's textile industry. At that time, not only the Chinese market and the international market occupied by China, but also the world market will be theirs, which is trillions of dollars of wealth every year. Second, cotton is a strategic commodity.
Cotton has always been regarded as a first-class strategic commodity. It can be said that every war is a consideration for the supply of cotton. It can provide a large number of jobs. The textile industry is a labor-intensive industry that can provide a large number of jobs, and cotton is the core of the textile industry, so as long as you take the lead in cotton, you can dominate the textile industry. The U.S. could move its textile industry from China to Vietnam or to the countries they want. In addition to economic losses, China will also lose a large number of jobs, which will also affect the stability of the country.
Why is the West only targeting Xinjiang cotton? Xinjiang's cotton production has increased year by year, reaching 5.161 million tons in 2020, exceeding 87% of China's cotton supply. In the same period, the total output of the United States was only more than 4 million tons, which is why China can maintain the world textile center for a long time. China is the world's largest importer and consumer of cotton, and Xinjiang cotton guarantees most of China's supply. Therefore, the West hypes Xinjiang cotton for two purposes. One is to make Xinjiang cotton farmers unable to sell, and finally give up planting cotton, then China will be forced to import more cotton from the United States and the United States.
Companies control the world's cotton, let the United States control the raw materials, and then re-dominate the international textile supply chain, rather than discouraging xinjiang cotton farmers. Then the United States, the European Union and other multinational countries come in to buy at a low price. As long as they share the share of Xinjiang cotton, the total amount of cotton they control is the first and second in the world, then they have the final say in the world's textile industry. In the final analysis, it is still necessary to compete for the dominance of the international supply chain.
The cotton-producing areas of the mainland are mainly concentrated in the northwest region. In 2021, Xinjiang will concentrate cotton planting areas in large cotton-growing counties. The sub-optimal cotton area, low-yield cotton area and fruit cotton intercropping cotton area in the whole region have withdrawn more than 300,000 mu of cotton planting. The cotton planting area of the whole region (including the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) is 37.18 million mu, and the total output is expected to be 5.2006 million tons, an increase of 39,600 tons over the previous year. With the rapid development of industrial and agricultural technology, cotton cultivation methods have undergone fundamental changes compared to the past. In the past, cotton cultivation was artificial, but now it is all mechanized. Sowing, fertilization, picking and other aspects of the use of machinery, agricultural drones have become the preferred intelligent agricultural machinery for cotton farmers to defoliate operations.
The number of agricultural plant protection UAVs based on the Beidou navigation system in Xinjiang exceeds 5,000, and the operating area exceeds 20 million mu. It greatly improves the planting efficiency and reduces the amount of labor. In terms of sowing, every spring, farmers in the northwest region begin to plow the land, turning the land over and renovating with a large medium tiller, and then sowing seeds with a large combined planter. The seeder is equipped with the Beidou navigation and positioning system, which can achieve high-precision sowing of cotton on the endless land, and even the machine can carry out unmanned sowing, heavy fertilization and spraying pesticides.
The cotton fields in northwest China are large. Artificial fertilization and spraying would be a time-consuming and laborious task. However, farmers in northwestErn China have adopted drone operations. Although the drone is small, it is large in function and efficient. Hundreds of acres of cotton fields are not used in a day, and fertilization and spraying can be easily completed. Modern China is also very advanced in cotton picking. In the endless cotton fields, there are beautiful snow scenes, but the cotton picking army of the past has long been lost.
Instead, advanced cotton pickers are busy picking in the field, and when the cotton picked reaches a certain amount, it will be compressed into cotton bullets and spit out from behind the machine. A cotton picker can complete 400 acres of cotton fields in ten hours a day, which is equivalent to the workload of 2,000 workers a day. In the northwestern region, the main cotton-producing region of the mainland, almost all cotton harvesting has been mechanized. According to the China Cotton Association, China's cotton output is 5.9237 million tons, imports are 2.35 million tons, exports are 30,000 tons, and consumption is 8.1 million tons. In recent years, the cotton planting area in Xinjiang has continued to increase, and it has become the most important cotton producing area in China.
In addition, the cultivation of major crops such as wheat, corn, and soybeans has basically achieved large-scale mechanization, which can be said to be today's China. Earth-shaking changes have taken place, basically mechanization has been realized, but there is still a certain gap with agricultural developed countries.
China should learn from developed agricultural countries, but it is not appropriate to copy them. We need to learn from them in a local way. The plains of northern China can learn from the fully mechanized agricultural production model of the United States, the mountainous and hilly areas of southern China can learn from Japan's micro-farming technology to achieve fine planting, and some ecological farms can learn from the production mode of Dutch scientific and technological agriculture. Only in this way can we achieve the full blossoming of agricultural development. Of course, this is also the future development path of China's agriculture. Do you agree with this? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.
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