BEIJING -- The claim of so-called German scholar Adrian Zenz that Xinjiang "forced workers of ethnic minority groups to pick cotton by hand" was seriously inconsistent with facts and aimed at depriving cotton farmers of their legal labor rights, says a report, titled "Slanderer Adrian Zenz's Xinjiang-related Fallacies Versus the Truth", on Friday.

According to data released by Xinjiang regional agricultural department, the mechanical picking rate of cotton reached 69.83 percent in the region in 2020. Adrian Zenz's claim that 70 percent of cotton was manually picked in Xinjiang was seriously inconsistent with facts, it says.

The purpose of Adrian Zenz's "forced labor" allegation was to incite anti-China forces in the West to sanction, restrict and suppress the cotton industry in Xinjiang, deprive local cotton farmers and pickers of their legal labor rights, and disrupt social stability and prosperity in the region, the report says.