An interesting article, and a reality check for those who think that China's people would be better off without industrialisation, "globalisation" and modernisation.

China's urban population has rotten living and working conditions compared to ours, but the rural life from which they came is worse still.

Thanks for this Brian. Very interesting. Thanks to OLO for getting it in.

We hear about the economic miracle and a little about the repression but nothing about the daily lives 7 days a week for 800 million scratching out a living.

I hope more people living in the developed world realize the Chinese-made products that we so often buy are created by workers who receive less than a fraction of what we pay and work in utterly inhumane conditions. For one thing, it is illegal for them to form labor unions to fight for their rights.

Come to think of lending a helping hand, the rich in China has a lot they could do but self examination also finds we are also doing far from enough. We all realised the poor paying condition for the Chinese workers who slaved to make suits, toasters, fridges we are enjoying and taking low price for granted. Any of us are prepared to pay another dollar on those products to support the poor workers in China?