Re: Child labour
Slightly different cattle of fish.
China is simply (ab)using the old student labor system which kept alive the Soviet block. In that system students either got a small fraction of the money they were supposed to get or did not get any money at all while working 2-3 months a year to fill the labor gaps in agriculture, food processing, etc.
Same story here.
This same story however is "bad news" for all those who have bet their companies future on the "super flexible" supply chain starting there (Apple's Mr Cook is a prime example). If China's supply chain flexibility needs gap filling through the forced drafting of students it is:
1. Not flexible at all. In fact, if the student labor goes away the supply chain will probably collapse (same as it did in the ex-Soviet block agriculture in the 90-es).
2. The quality will deteriorate significantly after a time. Students see the slavery obligations as such and start "sabotaging" "work". I remember what we did 30 years ago - as nobody listened to us we got relatives to pull their connections in H&S, Sanitary control or labor authorities, we acknowledged openly that the quotas were rigged and worked towards like 10% of what we were supposed to do, etc.