Since 2021, the proportion of mainland textile and garment in the world has been maintained at more than 50%, and it is not an exaggeration to say that China has supported half the world's clothing.
Looking at this number alone, it may not feel like much, but we only need to look back a little to get a basic understanding.
In 1949, the mainland textile industry could only support 3.5 meters of cotton cloth per capita, while a set of ordinary clothes needed about 6 meters of cloth.
Moreover, this shortage of the textile industry lasted for more than 30 years, and it was not until 1983, with the abolition of cloth tickets, that we really bid farewell to the era of "wearing less".
However, after that, it entered another textile era.
In 1997, the output of chemical fiber in mainland China surpassed that of United States and Japan, becoming the world's first.
In 2007, yarn, cloth, woolen, silk fabrics, clothing, the entire textile industry chain in mainland China ranked first in the world.
Up to now, the textile industry has been a leader for nearly 20 years.
From taking care of oneself to being the first in the world, this is certainly not the work of one person, but the legend created by countless Chinese textile people.
However, just as there is always a relatively shining one in the night sky, there is also a relatively shining one in the vast sea of people in the textile industry.
In May 2019, since Huawei was first United States included in the entity list, China's leading companies in all walks of life have been the targets of trouble, and Huafu Fashion, from the textile industry, is one of them.
Since 2006, Huafu Fashion has invested heavily in Xinjiang and built a complete industrial chain around cotton, and has always been one of the important enterprises that help the development of China's western region and help Xinjiang alleviate poverty.
What does cotton from Xinjiang mean for China, this place alone contributes 87.3% of China's production.
What does cotton mean to Xinjiang, a sentence from Xinjiang cotton farmers speaks to the fundamentals:
"Snow-white cotton is our gold, we grow cotton, buy cars, buy houses, and live a good life."
The country is good, the people are good, which makes United States unbearable, so he took action against Huafu Fashion, and in May 2020, Huafu Fashion was United States included in the entity list.
However, Huafu Fashion is a textile company, and the hat of data security is naturally not worn, and after thinking about it, it is forced into an excuse of "forced cotton farmer labor", which makes people speechless.
A few months later, HM, a Sweden clothing company, also announced that it would terminate its business with Huafu Fashion.
The sudden difficulties caught Huafu Fashion off guard, and its performance in 2020 was greatly affected, with a loss of 400 million that year.
However, the pain is only short-lived, and now more than 4 years have passed, the sound of the waves is still the same, the cotton in Xinjiang is still in full bloom as usual, and Huafu fashion is still the global leader in color spinning.
The train runs fast, all depends on the headband, the company goes steadily, all depends on the leader, Huafu fashion vertical and horizontal textile industry for 30 years, inseparable from its founder Sun Weiting.
In 1963, Sun Weiting was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang, and entered Zhejiang Textile Industry Company at the age of 19, and has been working in the textile industry for more than 40 years.
Sun Weiting's ability is quite outstanding, and it took only 5 years to go from an ordinary clerk to the deputy director of the Planning and Materials Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Light Industry.
After serving as the deputy director for three years, he was transferred to Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province as the deputy district head.
The 27-year-old deputy district head, Sun Weiting, may be the youngest deputy director-level cadre at that time, and if he continues to follow his career, the development prospects are limitless.
However, in 1992, Deng Gong's speech on the southern tour changed Sun Weiting's life pursuit, and he resolutely decided to resign and go to sea to realize the value of life in another way.
How could such a good cadre seedling be willing to let go, the superior leaders talked to him many times.
However, it was useless to talk about it, and the leader saw that he couldn't pull it back, so he could only throw out the last request and work for at least 3 years.
Sun Weiting arrived as the deputy head of the district in 1990, and in 1993 he just reached the limit, and then he couldn't wait to resign and founded Huafu Color, the predecessor of Huafu Fashion.
To put it simply, the chain of the textile industry is roughly divided into three parts, the top layer is the raw materials and their deep processing, the middle layer is the spinning and weaving, and the downstream is the clothing.
Taking cotton as an example, after cotton is picked, it is further processed to form cotton fibers, which are spun into cotton threads, which are then woven into cotton cloth, and finally cotton cloth into clothes.
Of course, this is just a simplified description of the process, and there are many specific processes and details, such as dyeing.
We may have seen the traditional dyeing method on TV, which is generally to dye the fabric, such as pure cotton cloth, which is white when woven, and needs other colors to dye.
However, there is a disadvantage to dyeing cloth, which costs water and materials, and the effect is not good, so with the progress of textile technology, more advanced dyeing methods have gradually evolved, such as dyeing threads and fibers.
The cloth is composed of threads, if the thread is dyed first, what color of cloth is wanted, what color of thread is used, and a mixture of different colors is flower cloth.
The thread is made of fibers, and if the fibers are dyed first, the spun threads will have color, and then the color of the cloth will be more colorful.
The process of dyeing the fiber and then spinning and weaving the fabric is called color spinning, and Huafu fashion is mainly engaged in this thing.
Color spinning technology appeared in China in the 80s of the last century, Huafu fashion is not the earliest, but now it is the largest, but also the best.
At the beginning of his business, Sun Weiting also experienced the difficult choice of "trade, industry and technology, technology and trade", but in the end he chose the latter, and soon after the establishment of the company, he built his own R&D center and insisted on taking the road of independent innovation.
From 1993 to 2000, Sun Weiting devoted himself to accumulating technical foundation, building brands and establishing international channels.
After everything was ready, it began to expand in 2001, successively acquired a number of color spinning enterprises in the same industry, and rapidly expanded its scale.
The layout of Xinjiang in 2006 is an important step in industrial expansion, and Xinjiang has now become an important raw material and production base of Huafu fashion.
In 2018, Huafu Fashion ranked first in the world with a production capacity of 1.8 million spindles, of which Xinjiang accounted for 880,000 spindles.
The spindle is the unit of measurement in the textile industry, because the spun yarn is wound on the spindle, so the spindle is used to calculate the capacity and output of the textile mill.
In 2018, the total global production capacity of color spinning was about 7 million spindles, which means that Huafu Fashion alone contributed nearly 1/4.
As mentioned earlier, traditional dyeing costs water, and an important feature of color spinning is water saving, Huafu fashion color spinning process, each fabric required for the production of a piece of clothing can save 4 kg of water, and the production of a ton of fabric can save 50 tons of water.
In Xinjiang, I am afraid that only such a textile industry can survive there for a long time.
Of course, Huafu fashion is not only cotton, cotton only accounts for 70%, but also hemp, silk, polyester, etc., and it is a variety of mixed formulas to form fabrics that can meet various needs, so that Huafu fashion has captured various giant customers.
In fact, the materials of the clothes we usually wear on our bodies come from a wide range of sources.
Take the mineral water we often drink, for example, 15 mineral water bottles can be turned into recycled polyester fabric enough to make a short-sleeved T-shirt if it is fashionable at Huafu.
In the entire chain of China's textile industry, Huafu fashion is not a trivial matter, but Sun Weiting said that what he has done in the past 30 years is only "one yarn".
However, this is like eating dumplings, you will not be full until the 20th dumpling, can you say that the first 19 dumplings are useless.
Huafu Fashion is at least one of those 19 dumplings.