The Truth Behind China’s Low Product Prices and Rising Material Costs

It is very important to know the truth of a situation. Many of us have had the experience of being cheated. This is because we did not know the truth; as a result, we paid prices that were too high. Not knowing the truth will cause us to erroneously evaluate the alternatives and make wrong decisions.

www.theepochtimes.com...

It appears that they have a rather large pool of underpaid workers because they have not known anything better. With the large contracts it ensures that they will have a steady stream of inflowing cash. It goes back to the old principle that if you sell for less you can make-up the the difference in volume. The article is right about them not having to put up large amounts of cash to build the proper infastructure. Since the banks are controlled by the govt. of course the costs are going to be less than it would be for your average person. With the money already in place and it being cheap to aquire, how can they not make a profit by selling on a lower price per piece? It seems they have taken some lessons in Western Cluture.

Originally posted by FLYIN HIGH
It appears that they have a rather large pool of underpaid workers .

Many of the persons in forced labor camps are innocent.

Informative post. Add's some serious thought towards a sustainable "Global Economy" theory.


This is all like a really old Kung-Fu movie plot, honestly. Whoever wrote this script is really lazy.... and people honestly try to back up this "Global Reality" that they try to pass off to the masses worldwide as how things are going to be?

sounds like the top guys in china are selling their own country out for some big profits $$$$

Evidence shows that Lanzhou Zhenglin Nongken Food Ltd., Jinan Tianyi Printing Co. Ltd., and Qiqiha'er Siyou Chemical Industry Co. Ltd. directly cooperated with labor camps and detention centers to force Falun Gong practitioners to manufacture forced labor products without any payment during their detention. Practitioners are forced to work more than 10 hours a day, sometimes even continuously overnight. Those that cannot fulfill their tasks are beaten, some even tortured to death. Products of these companies are available in major cities in China, while products of Lanzhou Zhenglin Nongken Food Ltd. are exported to more than 30 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, etc.

www.upholdjustice.org...

It's absolutely amazing that no one has said anything about these astounding testomonys. It's a rather thin vineer society lives upon, the filth is just under the carpets now. Impressive references also, someone that has backup for his paper. This is news worthy material. wish I could vote YES on it.

do u think it really happened in CHINA?
how many guys here believe this news?

Originally posted by Oct
Evidence shows that Lanzhou Zhenglin Nongken Food Ltd., Jinan Tianyi Printing Co. Ltd., and Qiqiha'er Siyou Chemical Industry Co. Ltd. directly cooperated with labor camps and detention centers to force Falun Gong practitioners to manufacture forced labor products without any payment during their detention. Practitioners are forced to work more than 10 hours a day, sometimes even continuously overnight. Those that cannot fulfill their tasks are beaten, some even tortured to death. Products of these companies are available in major cities in China, while products of Lanzhou Zhenglin Nongken Food Ltd. are exported to more than 30 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, etc.

www.upholdjustice.org...

Originally posted by usual
do u think it really happened in CHINA?
how many guys here believe this news?

Uhh, yeah dude. What do you think happens to enemies of the state in China? You think they give them a bunch of roses, a hong bao, and ask them nicely to be good? FaLun Gong is declared an "evil religious cult" by the CCP. FaLun Gong practitioners are arrested regularly and sent to "re-education through labour" camps where they are beaten, indoctrinated and forced to do hard labour.

Jump in this thread if you disagree:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 2005/6/30 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by usual
do u think it really happened in CHINA?
how many guys here believe this news?

Read this please, maybe you can understand more:

Investigative Report on Forced Labour Products Made by Falun Gong Practitioners in China's Labour Camps (Part II)


Summary

This report further exposes the widespread phenomena of China's "re-education-through-labour" camp and prison system, in which unlawfully detained Falun Gong practitioners have been forced into manufacturing products without pay ever since the nationwide persecution of Falun Gong was initiated by the Jiang Zemin regime in 1999. Over 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners are illegally detained in China's forced labour camps, where they suffer physical and mental torture from exploitation and inhumane working conditions.

www.clearharmony.net...

Here's another article to add to the collection:

The labor camp is divided into several jail areas, commonly known as production brigades. From coal mining, brick firing to electricity generating, cheap labor and low production costs allow the reform-through-labor enterprise to prosper. Coals from private operations cost 400 yuan (US$48.33) per ton while the ones mined by prisoners are only 300 yuan (36.25) per ton; private brick firing factory charge 0.1 yuan per brick whilst the ones fired by prisoners only cost 0.07 yuan each.

The owner of a neighboring company said that the abnormally low prices set by the reform-through-labor program drastically disrupted the local coal market. He goes on to explain that the program’s cheap labor, plus a series of governmental subsidies and tax exemptions, creates a superiority with which no private company could compete. As a result, many companies have gone out of business. Anyone who has seen the hazardous conditions these prisoners work in should have the sense not to purchase such inexpensive labor products.

Prisoners in the reform-through-labor program were only given two meals each day while forced to work ten hours. They work every single day of the year and paralyze or perish along with well cave-ins.

www.theepochtimes.com

The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004)

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (www.falunhr.org) announced the publication of a new book, The 2004 United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong. It is the second book of collections of reports of the Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Commission on China’ violence against Falun Gong practitioners.


www.flghrwg.net...

China is also claiming their banks are near bankrupt and have received loans from World Bank in excess of $30 billion. They have $200 billion in their own banks! They are also, as the article suggested, tampering with the value of their currency and the claims of their GDP growth rate which some economist and experts think don't match up with their energy consumption. Stating that their energy conspumtion does is not increase at the proper rate that is indicated from their growth rate.

Trade World

Enter the WTO. Most of the shenanigans China is pulling off will be difficult if not impossible to sustain under WTO membership.

The Chinese government knows this, but still seems to have a penchant for playing with economic fire.

China is headed for interesting times.

One lesson they would do well to remember is that a large military without the backing of a strong economy is like a gun without bullets: it looks scary, and can be used as a crude club against the defenseless, but only an idiot would bring it to a gunfight. See Soviet Union.

There is a strategery in play here, though it may not be obvious to the casual observer.

Originally posted by Frosty
China is also claiming their banks are near bankrupt and have received loans from World Bank in excess of $30 billion.

Then they are screwed before they even start. That's how the World Bank keeps countries under the thumb. Once you start down the borrowing road with the international banks, there's no going back. And if they keep spending all their money on cosmetic things and the military, it's only going to get worse as they have to keep borrowing more to fix civil problems when they can be ignored no longer.

Well, I guess it serves the CCP right for wanting too much too fast, and for not spending the funds where they should be spent. A starving bag-lady has no business spending her money on beauty products.

Ummm....

I'am sorry to say this...

But is the whole thread based on the wonderful economic analysis provided by the Falungong, which is obviousely better then Forbes or most of the Nobel prize winning economists?

Correct?

Which part is not correct?

Labour camps? persecution?

These kinds of news about China seem to come mostly from the Epoch Times ... I'm not saying it's all BS, but a bit odd.

These accusations have been around for years, the Epoch Times just makes it easier to find. Forced labour camps are not new.

The Laogai Research Foundation was founded in 1992 to investigate the reform through labour system in China, and spread awareness. The founder, Harry Wu, was once a prisoner in the camps.

In the sixteen years since his release from one of China's "reform-through-labor" camps, Harry Wu has become a vexing presence both for China and for the Western governments who soft-pedal their objections to the regime's human-rights abuses. Beginning in 1991, Wu secretly entered, re-entered, and re-entered again what he calls the "Chinese Gulag," the labor camps where he had spent nineteen years of his life. While inside, armed only with a video camera, Wu acted as something of a surrogate journalist, documenting for Western news organizations evidence of China's vast use of prison labor to produce goods for export, and the Chinese hospitals that transplant organs from executed prisoners to wealthy and well-connected recipients while government officials look the other way.

Wu's clandestine visits came to an abrupt halt in June, when he was detained at the northwest border of Xinjiang province while attempting his fourth crossing. An American citizen since 1994, Wu faces charges -- including stealing state secrets -- punishable by death. This time, instead of lifting the thin veil of state denials covering shocking government practices, Wu himself had, by July, become a focal point of already deteriorating U.S.-China relations.

..............

It was in 1991 that Wu first returned to China, posing as a prison guard, carrying a hidden camera to videotape the production of goods that were being shipped to the United States. The existence of this prison economy -- comprising some 1,100 camps making products ranging from textiles to hand tools -- has been routinely denied by the Chinese. When that tape's quality was found too poor to be used, Wu slipped across the border again, this time posing as a Chinese-American businessman.This venture, with Ed Bradley, who also posed as a businessman, resulted in an Emmy award-winning 60 Minutes segment. "Harry Wu is a man on a mission," Bradley says. "He has used the tools of journalism in an activist's role. He's very good at what he does."

In April 1994, Wu returned to China to document for the BBC the illicit trade in executed prisoners' organs. Portraying himself as a wealthy American in search of an organ donor for an ailing uncle, Wu visited twenty-seven prisons, taping interviews with doctors and patients involved in the practice. (In one of the prisons, he was allowed to videotape heart surgery. In an editing error, the surgery was incorrectly identified in a voice-over in the BBC's documentary as a kidney transplant. The flaw came up in Wu's recent interrogation. He readily conceded the error to his captors, who in turn tried to portray his on-camera admission to the world as a confession of wrongdoing.) During the 1994 trip, Wu also obtained still photographs of show trials and prisoners who were seconds away from executions. The bodies of executed prisoners, Wu says, often yield organs for transplants.

Columbia Journalism Review

[edit on 4-8-2005 by Duzey]

Perhap's their labor costs at something like 10 cents an hour has something to do with manufacturing it, packaging it, shipping it and selling it to retailers at a price some 80% lower than we can do it ourselves in the free world?

Dallas