For years, the abiding view of China has been of a workshop powered by waves of young migrants able to outcompete workers elsewhere on the basis of low wages. This image is increasingly wide of the mark. The wage of the average migrant worker has quadrupled in US dollar terms since China joined the WTO at the end of 2001. The average Chinese factory worker now earns more than twice as much as his or her counterpart in Indonesia or Vietnam.
This Update is adapted from an article published in today’s China Daily newspaper.
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