China...wow!

[Barbara Moulton]

I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel last night. I believe it was the first one in a series.

When I was in Grade 8 my teacher went to China during the summer. When he told us about his trip, he said that if China ever decided to enter the Olympics, they would dominate within a short period of time. He described the courtyards full of thousands of people doing their morning exercise.

As I watched this documentary last night, I thought to myself, it isn't just the Olympics. What has happened in China in the past decade or so, is remarkable. The progress and development is unprecedented and the country is on its way to dominating the world stage.

When I was young, I feared the Soviet Union as the Communist power. In truth, I didn't give much thought to China. But China is a country to be reckoned with. What really struck me is the incredible discipline of the people. From the farmers working 14 hour days tilling rise paddies with no mechanical aids, to the Olympic hopefuls training six hours a day, six days a week, to the thousands upon thousands of young people who train in the martial arts. North American culture looks lazy and bloated in comparison.

It really made me think about the world's future. The documentary said that in 30 years we will need another planet to meet China's need for resources.

[Michael B. Ross]

Barbara, I think you are pinpointing a significant issue that will have a long-term and worldwide impact. What is happening in China is unprecedented. The upcoming Olympics will accelerate the changes occurring in China.

I visited China two years ago. I am not suggesting my two week visit makes me an authority or even gives me added insights, but it did picque my interest in China. I am fascinated by the fact that 1 of 5 people live in China. In fact, 1 of 3 live in either China or India. That in itself has to be reckoned with.

I visited the Three Gorges Dam. There is no way to describe its size or its impact on China. It also is symbolic of what is happening in China's major cities. They are greatly Westernized.

I missed the Discovery documentary. Actually, I forgot it was on, but I am sure it will be repeated. I hope to see it. Regardless, I share in your fascination with China.

I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel last night. I believe it was the first one in a series.

When I was in Grade 8 my teacher went to China during the summer. When he told us about his trip, he said that if China ever decided to enter the Olympics, they would dominate within a short period of time. He described the courtyards full of thousands of people doing their morning exercise.

As I watched this documentary last night, I thought to myself, it isn't just the Olympics. What has happened in China in the past decade or so, is remarkable. The progress and development is unprecedented and the country is on its way to dominating the world stage.

When I was young, I feared the Soviet Union as the Communist power. In truth, I didn't give much thought to China. But China is a country to be reckoned with. What really struck me is the incredible discipline of the people. From the farmers working 14 hour days tilling rise paddies with no mechanical aids, to the Olympic hopefuls training six hours a day, six days a week, to the thousands upon thousands of young people who train in the martial arts. North American culture looks lazy and bloated in comparison.

It really made me think about the world's future. The documentary said that in 30 years we will need another planet to meet China's need for resources.

[Belinda Y. Edwards]

Ditto to both of your posts in regards to the hightened interest and watchful eye toward China.

i didn't see the documentary. i would have loved to have seen it. Do you know if it will be aired again?

[Bruce Carriker]

I think it will be interesting to see how long the totalitarian government and Western business can remain in control of China. Eventually those factory workers who make one dollar a day (which allows WalMart to reap huge profits, and the Chinese government to run a huge trade surplus) are going to demand a share of all that growth you're talking about.

Sooner or later, the people will figure out the Chinese Army isn't big enough to shoot all of them at one time, and they're going to take what's rightfully theirs, unless its shared with them willingly by those who currently control the system.

For all the progress in places like Beijing and Shanghai, the vast majority of China's labor force still work in near-slave conditions; and the vast majority of their citizens still live in abject poverty.

[Dave McClung]

I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel last night. I believe it was the first one in a series.

When I was in Grade 8 my teacher went to China during the summer. When he told us about his trip, he said that if China ever decided to enter the Olympics, they would dominate within a short period of time. He described the courtyards full of thousands of people doing their morning exercise.

As I watched this documentary last night, I thought to myself, it isn't just the Olympics. What has happened in China in the past decade or so, is remarkable. The progress and development is unprecedented and the country is on its way to dominating the world stage.

When I was young, I feared the Soviet Union as the Communist power. In truth, I didn't give much thought to China. But China is a country to be reckoned with. What really struck me is the incredible discipline of the people. From the farmers working 14 hour days tilling rise paddies with no mechanical aids, to the Olympic hopefuls training six hours a day, six days a week, to the thousands upon thousands of young people who train in the martial arts. North American culture looks lazy and bloated in comparison.

It really made me think about the world's future. The documentary said that in 30 years we will need another planet to meet China's need for resources.

One illustration that has stuck with me from my military days was this: If you lined up the Chinese four abreast and ordered them to march into the sea at double time, you would never get to the end of the line because their population is growing faster than that.

[Michael B. Ross]

Bruce, your post reminded me of something I was going to include in mine. There are two China's: the visible, big city, Westernized, promoted one and the invisible, rural, poor, hidden one.

I think it will be interesting to see how long the totalitarian government and Western business can remain in control of China. Eventually those factory workers who make one dollar a day (which allows WalMart to reap huge profits, and the Chinese government to run a huge trade surplus) are going to demand a share of all that growth you're talking about.

Sooner or later, the people will figure out the Chinese Army isn't big enough to shoot all of them at one time, and they're going to take what's rightfully theirs, unless its shared with them willingly by those who currently control the system.

For all the progress in places like Beijing and Shanghai, the vast majority of China's labor force still work in near-slave conditions; and the vast majority of their citizens still live in abject poverty.

[Bruce Carriker]

Cut and pasted from "How WalMart is Remaking Our World"

Then there’s China. For years, Wal-Mart saturated the airwaves with a "We Buy American" advertising campaign, but it was nothing more than a red-white-and-blue sham. All along, the vast majority of the products it sold were from cheap-labor hell-holes, especially China. In 1998, after several exposes of this sham, the company finally dropped its "patriotism" posture and by 2001 had even moved its worldwide purchasing headquarters to China. Today, it is the largest importer of Chinese-made products in the world, buying $10 billion worth of merchandise from several thousand Chinese factories.

As Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee reports, "In country after country, factories that produce for Wal-Mart are the worst," adding that the bottom-feeding labor policy of this one corporation "is actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory-overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions."

Wal-Mart does not want the U.S. buying public to know that its famous low prices are the product of human misery, so while it loudly proclaims that its global suppliers must comply with a corporate "code of conduct" to treat workers decently, it strictly prohibits the disclosure of any factory names and addresses, hoping to keep independent sources from witnessing the "code" in operation.

Kernaghan’s NLC, acclaimed for its fact-packed reports on global working conditions, found several Chinese factories that make the toys Americans buy for their children at Wal-Mart. Seventy-one percent of the toys sold in the U.S. come from China, and Wal-Mart now sells one out of five of the toys we buy.

NLC interviewed workers in China’s Guangdong Province who toil in factories making popular action figures, dolls, and other toys sold at Wal-Mart. In "Toys of Misery," a shocking 58-page report that the establishment media ignored, NLC describes:

* 13- to 16-hour days molding, assembling, and spray-painting toys—8 a.m. to 9 p.m. or even midnight, seven days a week, with 20-hour shifts in peak season.

* Even though China’s minimum wage is 31 cents an hour—which doesn’t begin to cover a person’s basic subsistence-level needs—these production workers are paid 13 cents an hour.

* Workers typically live in squatter shacks, seven feet by seven feet, or jammed in company dorms, with more than a dozen sharing a cubicle costing $1.95 a week for rent. They pay about $5.50 a week for lousy food. They also must pay for their own medical treatment and are fired if they are too ill to work.

* The work is literally sickening, since there’s no health and safety enforcement. Workers have constant headaches and nausea from paint-dust hanging in the air; the indoor temperature tops 100 degrees; protective clothing is a joke; repetitive stress disorders are rampant; and there’s no training on the health hazards of handling the plastics, glue, paint thinners, and other solvents in which these workers are immersed every day.

As for Wal-Mart’s highly vaunted "code of conduct," NLC could not find a single worker who had ever seen or heard of it.

These factories employ mostly young women and teenage girls. Wal-Mart, renowned for knowing every detail of its global business operations and for calculating every penny of a product’s cost, knows what goes on inside these places. Yet, when confronted with these facts, corporate honchos claim ignorance and wash their hands of the exploitation: "There will always be people who break the law," says CEO Lee Scott. "It is an issue of human greed among a few people."

Those "few people" include him, other top managers, and the Walton billionaires. Each of them not only knows about their company’s exploitation, but willingly prospers from a corporate culture that demands it. "Get costs down" is Wal-Mart’s mantra and modus operandi, and that translates into a crusade to stamp down the folks who produce its goods and services, shamelessly building its low-price strategy and profits on their backs.

From IAbolish.Com, and American anti-slavery group:

Country Report: China
Men and women work under armed guards in a state-run system of 'reeducation' factories.
Map of ChinaA Victim's Story

In 1994 at age 26, Tong Yi was arrested and brought to the Reeducation Through Labor camp in her hometown. She believes she was arrested because of her association with a political dissident, but official charges were never filed, nor did she ever stand trial. Nevertheless, she was forced to work every day for the next two and a half years. She was given only miniscule, meat-less rations. Also, she had to squat while eating - for no apparent reason other than to humiliate her. She lived in a tiny cell, yet she could be considered lucky; her cellmate remained handcuffed and chained at all times.

Temperatures in the workplace often exceeded 120 degrees, but the 200 workers were given only half an hour each day to share the camp's six showers. Many women developed constant rashes and scars from the disease-ridden showers and the toxic chemicals used in the prison labor. One day Tong refused to work more than the government limit of eight hours, and the guards ordered her fellow inmates to beat her. She was released in 1996 and is now a law student in the US.

Since 1955, when China began its Reeducation (or Reform) Through Labor program, more than 3.5 million Chinese citizens have been punished by means of forced labor - now as many as 200,000 detainees each year. While most are imprisoned for such crimes as drug use and prostitution, a growing number of political and religious dissidents are detained. The Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned by the government, claims that over 5,000 of its members have been imprisoned in Reeducation Through Labor since 1999.
Country Background

After the communist government took control in 1949, all Chinese industry became state-owned and the government returned to traditional isolationist policies. But since the 1970's, the state has responded to the failing economy by privatizing small and medium sized enterprises and working to open the country to foreign trade. China is now a leading producer of coal, steel, textiles, and grains. Its major exports include electronic goods, toys, apparel, and plastics.
Causes of Slavery

Due in large part to its huge population, China is now a major player in the global market. But the country's economy, caught somewhere between communism and capitalism, remains under-developed. As part of an effort to become a true economic powerhouse, the government - already a rampant abuser of human rights - continues to rely on forced labor.

China claims that the purposes of the program are punishment and rehabilitation, but the RTL (also known as Laogai) is also meant to be self-sufficient, reforming citizens while extracting valuable labor. Despite trouble in the 1980's, the RTL system today shows a profit, which enables the government to fund the 1,100 camps now in existence. China's desire to become more open to foreign trade also leads other penal facilities to contract with private businesses for inmate labor.
The Process of Enslavement

As a result of China's vigorous anti-crime campaigns, the RTL has particularly targeted drug users and prostitutes. In addition, thousands of people are arrested for religious activities, political dissidence, and labor activism. Sentences are not imposed by the People's Court but by an administrative arm of the government. Women and men, young and old, are sent to prison without trial.

Working up to 16 hours a day - sometimes through the night - prisoners assemble batteries, garments, and other products. Inmates frequently cough up blood or collapse from exhaustion. Fumes damage their lungs and the powerful lighting sometimes causes blindness. Nearby, there might be a man or woman handcuffed to a railing, feet barely touching the ground - an example of a slow worker.

Sanitation in RTL facilities is lax, and disease is rampant. Inmates who have been working with toxic battery materials are often not allowed to wash their hands before meals. And the amount of food they receive - usually dirty vegetables and undercooked rice - is based on the completion of the day's quotas. Furthermore, those who fail to meet these quotas might be locked in a small hot cell filled with mosquitoes or hung from basketball hoops. Standard cells house 12 to 16 people. Prisoners stay for their entire sentence - usually between one year and several decades. If the prison faces a labor shortage, however, prisoners can be held beyond their release dates.
Products

In 1992, the US and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which prohibits trade in products produced by prison labor. Enforcement, however, is lax. The Chinese government often denies outsiders access to its prisons. Moreover, it claims that RTL centers are not "prisons," and therefore do not fall under the MOU. In fact, state-owned shipping companies frequently act as middlemen in the export of RTL products to the US. Common items produced in RTL facilities for exportation to various Western countries include clothing, auto parts, binding clips, tools, toys, graphite, and batteries.

The list is literally endless. Just do a Google search on "China+worker abuse" and you will get thousands of articles from sources around the world, groups with all kinds of backgrounds - Christians, labor groups, human rights groups, political groups, etc.

[Terri Knoll]

that's the picture just about everywhere...even here in the good ole U.S.

[Barbara Moulton]

that's the picture just about everywhere...even here in the good ole U.S.

Could you clarify? It seems you are responding to Bruce? Do you believe that the majority of people in the US live in abject poverty and work in slave like situations?

[Roland Hearn]

One illustration that has stuck with me from my military days was this: If you lined up the Chinese four abreast and ordered them to march into the sea at double time, you would never get to the end of the line because their population is growing faster than that.


But where would the babies come from if they are all marching at double time? That really would show Chinese adaptability at its best :rolleyes:

[Michael B. Ross]

Roland, you don't understand. Their "adaptability" is not while they are marching but later while they are swimming.

But where would the babies come from if they are all marching at double time? That really would show Chinese adaptability at its best :rolleyes:

[Roland Hearn]

Roland, you don't understand. Their "adaptability" is not while they are marching but later while they are swimming.

Oh ok now I get it. Sorry :basic05