The share of foreign manufacturers in China’s total manufacturing sales grew from 2.3 percent in 1990 to 31.3 percent in 2000.

Another consequence is that China’s economic growth has become increasingly dependent on foreign produced exports. Approximately 46 percent of foreign manufacturing production is exported, compared with only 16 percent for domestically owned manufacturing firms.

The ratio of exports to GDP has steadily climbed from 16 percent in 1990 to 36 percent in 2003.5

Investment and exports account for approximately 80 percent of Chinese GDP.7

Private (household) consumption, which fell as a share of GDP from 51.1 percent in 1988 to 38.9 percent in 2005.

China’s exports to the United States account for about half of its total exports.

Domestic value-added accounts for only 15 percent of the value of exported electronic and information technology products.

Foreign firms were responsible for 86.9 percent of China’s total exported electronic products.

Wages in the Pearl River Delta, the province’s manufacturing belt, have been virtually frozen at about $80 per month for the past decade

The share of the informal sector—defined as employment without access to social benefits or unemployment protection—rose to about 50 percent of total employment in Latin America….  [t]he reality is quite the opposite; workers in China and the rest of East Asia are being forced to battle conditions very similar to those in Latin America. Here we focus on the situation in China.

Migrant workers for to obtain government set minimum wage requires are working long hours.  According to a survey I conducted in China’s footwear industry, the average workday there amounts to about 11 hours each day, often with no days off—that is, about an 80-hour work-week.  Moreover many migrant workers are not being paid what they are owed.”  There are an estimated 100 million migrant workers. 

Significantly, regular formal wage employment in China’s urban sector actually declined at an annual average rate of 3 percent over the period 1990–2002

Manufacturing over the period 1990–2002, overall regular (formal and informal sector) manufacturing employment actually fell by 16.6 million workers

Alongside these employment problems, there is also “the unprecedented scale and speed of the deterioration of the natural environment.