Hi, I have read the report "The High Tech Misery in China" and I have a few thoughts.

First, the issues underlying in the reports do exist in Chinese society and they need to addressed to the government and to the public. In this report, the issues that are relevant to labor condition according to China’s new labor law are: the delay or overdue on wages, involuntarily overtime work and unguaranteed health insurance. Besides, there are certain management methods that seem cruel. The working condition and human resource management in general in China, need to be improved and sustainable in a social, environmental and economical way.I, as a Chinese citizen, highly appreciated the work NLC has done to uncover these issues.

However, I found the report is, at some level, taken out of the local context. A big percentage of the content is contributed to explaining how the IT sweatshop does not meet the basic standard in terms of wages and living conditions. However, it does not include the information of what is the average wage and living condition in China. Increasing unemployment is one of China’s biggest economic challenges. While the national unemployment rate is currently 4 percent, one recent study predicts this figure could rise to 14 percent before the economic crisis subsides. This means the number of unemployed Chinese could rise to 170 million, gradually forming a threat to social unrest. From the report, the salary for the workers is 1200-1500rmb/month, which is the starting salary for a university graduate.

In Benjamin Powell's article "Sweatshops and Third World Living Standards: Are the Jobs Worth the Sweat?", it shows that it is agreed among economists that multinational firms pay more than domestic firms in most cases. Also, by comparing the industry wages and the wages of individual firms accused of being sweatshops to measures of the standard of living in Third World economies, most sweatshop jobs provide an above average standard of living for their workers.

Though China’s GDP is increasing every year with rapid speed, with its big population, the GDP per person sill belongs to the developing country category. Besides, there are 700 million people living in the rural area, most of who are still striving to get out of poverty level.

The economic way of thinking views sweatshops here from an exchange perspective in which both workers and employers gain when they voluntarily enter into a labor contract no matter how low the wages may seem to external observers. Therefore, if the contract between the workers and the employees are signed voluntarily with the employees be aware of the living condition and salary, the human rights violation mentioned in the report should be considered comparing to other rights, such as rights to live with necessities and rights to gain economic prosperity.

The “prison-like” condition described in the report may seem incredibly brutal, especially with the emotional language used in the report, but some of them are fairly common according to the average living standard in China, such as living in a dorm without air conditioner, using squatting toilet, eating in a cafeteria with big line ups, having curfew, some of them are simply cultural difference, eating congee for breakfast, eating chicken leg with skin on. Discipline is highly emphasized, such as group duty charts, ban to walk on grass, frequent report to the supervisor, but this cannot be used simply to draw the human rights violation conclusion. For a country with 1.3 billion populations, if every one is allowed to walk on grass, sadly there will be no grass existing any more.

Besides the description of working condition, the report also touched on the computer trade between China and US: “China is not only manipulating its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage—arbitrarily devaluing the yuan to lower the cost of its imports to the U.S. China is also providing its export factories with large tax subsidies.” It brings the issue into a global political economical background, where the United States and China are two of the most influential parties. One is the principle supporter and of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the other is the new member. One is trying to set up a consensus agreement to international trade so that the corporations, which rely on export, can open access to liberalized markets and those whose profits are from the domestic economy can be protected from foreign competition. The other is also trying to benefit from the organizational advantages and liberal capitalism while still showing resistance to globalization with a socialism legacy. And I simply do not see any elaboration on this background which is very important to a better understanding of the issue. And also, if the human rights is so important to the US, why did it withdrew from the obligatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and strongly oppose creation of the International Criminal Court.

I understand the intention of using a humanized angle to address the problem and to attract attention, particularly from the media. As a journalism student, I realize that during the past, NGOs have helped tremendously in bringing the human rights issue to the public through all kinds of medium, particularly true in media. They are able to invest time and money on in-depth research and systematically release information about violations before and during crises, often in great details and with accuracy. They play an important role especially in countries where access is limited, such as China. However, they also have mastered in using elaborate and effective lobbying and communication strategies to disseminate their findings such as picking a personal or emotive angle. They, together with other organizations such as government public affairs departments, private public relations firms who undoubtedly benefited from the political evolution of modern lobbying, start to create spins to win the media’s coverage priority.

On one hand, it requires journalists to better understand the issue and unspin the drama. On the other hand, I think NGOs should be more careful with the datas,language and presentation, especially when covering issues in another country, and be aware that Chinese like me are reading the reports as well, which is very crucial for the credibility of the NGO.