Almost all north XJ cotton is picked mechanically, around 70% of XJ output. Why? Because XJ gdp / labour cost increased so much that labour is increasingly uncompetitive. Hence 4000% increase in orders of John Deere cotton picking machines, followed by US sanctions on John Deere to make sure XJ relies on manual labour so US/Zenz can keep driving the slave labour narrative. The 30% in South XJ is still hand picked, much poorer and rural region where manual labour is feasible. BTW XJ cotton is heavily subsidized (transportation mainly), it's basically a jobs program (i.e. poverty alleviation). The idea that XPCC depends on slave labour for XJ cotton is stupid for the simple reason that it's much cheaper to not pick cotton at all. And even Zenz hitpiece does not find examples that these are anything but competitively paid positions relative to local wages, which is still significantly higher than bottom 40% in China, there are over 500M+ Han from other provinces willing to work for XJ south poverty alleviation wages.

Completely unrelated is US and India are the other largest cotton producers, one of which as record of forced child labour for ~10 years.