News America takes a step closer to China

[Mercator]

The true irony is when you look at some of the places operating in the same way and they are NOT SOEs. A goodly portion seem to have Western and Taiwanese names above the door.
Here's http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/china.html" as of April this year.
http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/disney.htm"
Look at your http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DL24Ad01.html" Fa-la-la-la-la la-la la la.
http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/fact_sheets_and_backgrounder/walmart/sweat_shops.cfm"

Yes, TSM, that's why I said SOE's AND the new business crooks. Of course Nike and co are old buiness crooks.

 

[Polly]

Li Oa, a maverick scholar from Taiwan well known in all Chinese communities who moved to Taiwan from the Mainland in his teens in 1949, visited Beijing, Tsinghua and Fudan Universities in the PRC recently. Not disputing how far the PRC has yet to go of course, his description of the PRC's humble beginning in 1949 and situation just 30 years ago is interesting to read and I think sets the perspective on how far the PRC has come.

Things in 1949

Well, what kind of mess did the Communists take over in 1949? The Kuomintang took everything that it could to Taiwan. Personally, I took along 500 books. The Kuomintang took away all the gold in the national vault. At the time, the gold was valued at 300 million American dollars. Today, that does not mean much. But at that time, it was the sum total of all the money that China had...
...When the Kuomintang left, they took everything that they could and left a barren China behind. They cleaned out the national vault. They blew up all the bridges that they could. They took away everything that they could take. But they left behind three million bad elements to cause trouble. The bandits and the Kuomintang spies were left behind on the mainland. This caused the Communists a lot of stress in trying to manage poverty as well as the security problems.
...Finally, 1949 came. The People's Republic of China was established. Poverty was our biggest threat. There was a joke at the time. When our relationship with Soviet Russia was still good, there was a joke about the relationshop between Mao Zedong and the Soviet Russian ruler Nikita Khruschev. Mao sent a telegram to Khruschev: "Give us food. We are poor. We have no food. Give us bread." Khruschev replied to Mao: "Comrade Mao, there is no food. You will have to tighten your belts." Chairman Mao's second telegram to Khruschev said: "Please send the belts over."

Things 30 years ago:

I read a report from thirty years ago. A group of people went to Kansu to inspect agriculture. They were thirsty and they asked a farmer for water. After entering the farmhouse, the farmer greeted them warmly . As they drank the water, they saw a cotton blanket on the bed and someone was moving underneath. They were curious and asked the farmer if someone was sleeping. The farmer said no one was sleeping. "Then why was the person underneath the blanket?" The farmer said, "I don't want to hide anything from you. She is my daughter. You are guests. She cannot come out because she has no pants to wear."
Here is another pantless story that I have heard from somewhere else. I have good friend in Taiwan named Li Qinghua, whose father is Li Huan who had been the "Premier." He told me personally that when they were soldiering in the northwest, some families had only one pair of pants. When the farmer came out, everybody else inside had no pants. When the farmer's wife had to come out, the farmer bared his arse inside. Our China had been very poor, and it cannot be blamed upon the Communists.

Source: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050925_1.htm