LECTURE 8: The Manufacturing Sector (China)

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Foreign Investment, The State and Labour in

China

Economic development in China

– key trends

Deng Xiaoping’s market-orientated reforms (1979+)

‘Open door’ policies

Special economic zones (SEZs)

Share of world FDI stock: 1% in 19806% in 2002

Mainstream views on China’s economic development

– China as ‘threat’?

China’s rise as ‘threat’ to status quo in international

economic relations

China as ‘workshop of the world’‘weapons of mass

production’

Government support to domestic firms in ‘going global’

High-tech exports and R&D

Barriers to upgrading domestic maufacturing firms

What is ‘Chinese’ about manufacturing in China?

‘China’ as a coherent economic whole?

‘Domestic’ firms internationally non-competitive in

advanced manufactures‘

global business revolution’ of

the 1990s

Trade protection is less of an option since joining WTO in

2001

Uneven development, wages and labour activism in

China

Poverty has declined, while inequality has increased... and economic development is geographically

highly uneven

Urban wages have grown in recent years.. but ‘catch-up’ on a per capita basis is still limited

compared to other newly industrialised East Asian

economies

Chinese manufacturing workers are heavily exploited,

especially rural migrant workers....the case of Foxconn

Growth of labour activism

‘bullwhip effect’?

Chinese workers are increasingly challenging the model

of low wages and poor working conditions

Summary

China is the workshop of the contemporary world

But in whose interests?

How sustainable is its position?

Will domestic firms be able to compete internationally?

Is China an example of ‘uneven development’?

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