For now, the media spotlight is on Apple and its Taiwanese contract supplier Foxconn. But China’s leaders will also be shifting uncomfortably as the gaze of the international media turns to the harsh underbelly of its manufacturing economy.
Behind China’s remarkable economic progress toil an estimated 120 million migrant workers, typically living and working in austere factory complexes.
Two decades into China’s industrial transformation, how much responsibility do authorities shoulder for its Hukou (household registration) system that effectively institutionalizes migrant workers as second-class citizens in their own country?
But for now, it is Apple in the firing line. The New York Times ignited media interest after a story on unsafe working conditions, as well as seven-day workweeks and cramped dormitories at Apple’s Foxconn supplier in China.
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