Laws: January, 2003 - Number #14

China has too many people employed in agriculture, and joining the World Trade Organization will increase rural-urban migration as farm prices drop. In 2000, rural incomes averaged $272, compared to $763 in cities. China is the world's largest farm state, feeding 22 percent of the world's people with 10 percent of its arable land, and leading the world in wheat and cotton production and consumption as well as pork production- 80 percent of Chinese pork is from households with four or fewer pigs.

China's 1997 agricultural census reported an agricultural work force of 500 million, including 350 million employed in agriculture six months or more. Most estimates are that 200 million Chinese could leave agriculture without reducing farm output. During the 1990s, about four million Chinese a year left the farm work force, but eight million entered, helping to explain static rural incomes. Much of the downward pressure on farmers is concentrated in the northeast, where water is scarce, there is only one harvest a year, and the crops are wheat and others that can be bought more cheaply as imports.

Privatization. China began selling state-owned businesses to workers after 1997, but many worker-owned businesses have not done well and are being resold to their former managers, often by corrupt or questionable methods. In some cases, the mentality of workers shifted, from the "iron rice bowl" of the government offering job security and benefits at state-owned factories to the "golden rice bowl" of worker-owners taking advantage of private owners, stealing from factories and often being absent. Across China, the number of state enterprises has dropped by more than 40 percent between 1995 and 2002, and at least 40 million workers have lost their jobs.

China is the leading exporter in the developing world. Many of its exports are made or assembled in foreign-financed companies staffed by young women, often migrants from rural areas who are under 25, live in company-owned dormitories, and work for $3 a day. The least skilled workers tend to be in toy manufacturing, where 1.5 million Chinese are employed. According to one study, the Chinese cost of production of a Barbie doll priced at $10 in the US is $0.35. Foreign-financed factories accounted for half of China's $550 billion in exports in 2001.

Foreign investment in 2001 was over $55 billion, and more foreign-financed factories are producing for the Chinese market. There are almost 500 million people living in eastern China and earning an average $1,200 a year, making them buyers of everything from cars and cellphones to consumer appliances and electronics.

Hong Kong. Hong Kong has 153,000 Filipino, 77,000 Indonesian, and 7,000 Thai maids earning at least HK$3,670, or $470 a month. In order to raise tax revenues, the government proposed a tax of HK$500 a month on maids' wages; maids staged protests against the tax. Critics accused the government of discriminating against foreigners, since Hong Kong residents who earn less than HK$9,000 a month do not pay income tax.

The total number of foreign residents in Hong Kong rose from 251,200 in 1991 to 526,510 in 2001. Most of the increase came before 1997; since then, arriving maids have offset declining numbers of Japanese and other foreigners.

Mary Kwang, "Manila warns against planned HK maids levy," Straits Times, December 20, 2002. Glenn Schloss, "A growing army of Southeast Asian domestic helpers is enabling more mothers to work," South China Morning Post, December 9, 2002.