Those uppity Chinese workers . . . in Japan!
Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:05AM
Thomas P.M. Barnett in Asian integration, Citation Post

Pair of Economist stories.  First one is on how restive Chinese workers in China are changing the management practices of Japanese companies there--not easy to do.

Key point: 

The labour-market troubles are an aspect of China's shift from being the world's workshop to its shopping mall: as employees demand and get higher incomes, the country's attractiveness as a manufacturing base ebbs but its appeal as a consumer market grows.

Remember that as you calculate the Chinese economic "threat" in coming years.

Second story notes how badly Chinese worker-trainees in Japan are treated and how they're already turning to suicide to voice their concerns (those Chinese, they never do anything half-way).

Says Lila Abiko, of the Lawyers' Network for Foreign Trainees:

Japan is the richest country in Asia, yet this programme is exploiting poor Chinese like slaves.

Japan better clean up that act as its population ages . . ..

Ah, the joys and sorrows that is Asian integration!

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