Immigration Laws: January, 2004 - Number #10

China's economy is booming, but illegal migration from the southeastern coastal provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong continues, with migrants flying to South Korea or Japan, either staying or traveling on to North America and Europe. These are among China's wealthiest and fastest-growing regions, and have the most migrants from rural areas.

Estimates of the number of internal migrants in China, the so-called floating population that moves from inland rural provinces to coastal provinces, range from 100 million to 200 million. The women employed in factories and the men in construction earn lower wages than local residents, and many have trouble collecting their full wages- there are estimates that $12 billion in back wages is owed to migrants, whose remittances provide 40 percent of incomes in many farming areas. Wage complaints are especially frequent in construction, where crews disband when projects are completed and contractors say that they themselves have not been paid and so cannot pay their workers.

The three million migrants in Shanghai earn about half the $1,600 per capita income of natives in the city. The government estimates that migrant construction workers are owed 70 billion yuan in back wages.

About 40 percent of Chinese residents were classified as urban at the end of 2002, about the same as in Britain in the 1850s. Since 1979, an estimated 300 million Chinese have migrated from rural to urban areas, and another 250 to 300 million Chinese are expected to be rural-urban migrants by 2020.

Labor. China has become the factory to the world, with millions of internal migrants toiling in coastal factories producing goods that are exported to industrial countries. All Chinese and foreign companies with more than 100 employees are required by law to open a branch of a national union that belongs to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Independent unions are suppressed, which makes it hard for migrants expected to work 12 hours a day and seven days a week to protest.

One migrant who tried to organize an independent union said he did so because "I felt like we needed to be treated like real workers, not like migrants with no rights." As a result of his agitation, a company union was created with managers as leaders and, because workers lost wages if they took the time to vote, only 12 percent of the workers voted.

Many of the factories and migrants are in the Pearl River delta, which has become China's richest region-- incomes in big cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen are almost four times the national average. What began largely as a concentration of toy makers and furniture companies has moved up to an area of assembly lines for higher-technology businesses like consumer electronics and automakers. If Guandong is to move further up the scale to higher-value work, it needs world-class educational institutions that are so far lacking.

World trade in garments totals $350 billion a year, and China produces about 20 percent of the world's garment exports. In November 2003, the US announced that it may impose tariffs on Chinese textile imports; China is the largest exporter to the United States of clothing and apparel, footwear and toys, and had a trade surplus with the United States of $103 billion in 2002.

China is expected to account for 50 percent of garment exports by 2010, threatening the export-oriented garment sectors of countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, and the Philippines. All are labor exporters and, with Bangladesh poised to lose half of its 1.8 million garment jobs, 85 percent held by women, emigration pressure is likely to increase. Average garment wages are $35 a month in Bangladesh, half the level of Chinese wages, but productivity is lower in Bangladesh than in China.

About 80 percent of the toys sold in the US are made in China, and the 8,000 Chinese toy makers compete with each other to win contracts to make them. Etch-A-Sketches, made in Ohio until 1999, are now made by 850 workers near Hong Kong in a factory that has employees working seven- to 12-hour days a week for $0.24 an hour, or $85 a month.

China is on its way to becoming the world's leading exporter of labor-intensive farm commodities. Exports of all farm commodities in 2002 were $18 billion, slightly more than the $16 billion that US farmers exported to the Asia-Pacific region. Farmers growing fruits such as apples and pears have incomes that are twice those of non-fruit growers, encouraging a switch to fruits and vegetables that will swell exports. Experts say that, "If Chinese producers of labor-intensive crops can meet international quality standards, they will be a dominant force in the world market."

Hong Kong. Hong Kong and East Asia generally are relying more on the booming Chinese economy to sustain economic growth. Hong Kong serves as the trade and finance capital of China, and is the busiest transportation hub in Asia, and Chinese tourists are replacing Europeans and Americans.

Taiwan. Taiwan's Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) migrant worker policy is to have "foreign workers facilitate the employment of domestic workers" by requiring the hiring of two local workers for every foreign worker. Since 2000, the government has reduced the number of migrants by 32,000 to 297,000. Many of the foreigners are domestic helpers, who can switch employers once during their usual three-year contracts.

Many Taiwanese men marry mainland women, but a Fall 2003 investigation resulted in 12 percent of 3,900 mainland Chinese spouses of Taiwan residents being repatriated because the marriages were determined to be bogus.

Joseph Kahn, "When Chinese Workers Unite, the Bosses Often Run the Union," New York Times, December 29, 2003. Jonathan Kaufman, "Maid in China: More Workers Flock To Cities as 'Aunties,' Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2003.