Those Chinese hackers are rather sophisticated indeed. When blogger Noel Hidalgo went to China and was picked up & deported for filming a protest with his cell phone. He noticed that someone had also hacked his Facebook and Twitter accounts. Now Google is saying they’ve finally had enough? No more bending to the will of the Great Fire Wall of China?

Google said it had evidence to suggest that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts” of Chinese human rights activists. The attack was discovered in December.

Based on its investigation to date, Google said it does not believe the cyber attack succeeded. “Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves,” the companysaid in a blog posting.

But David Drummond, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer, added that the attacks “have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

For the moment it would appear that Google is saber rattling. But even if they are it will be interesting to see how China responds.

In the race to the bottom that we’re still in. Jobs are sent to China where there is no regulation, safety or decent wages. When this sort of trade policy is condoned, this is what the outcome will be.

More than 1,300 children have been poisoned by a manganese factory in central China, the state media reported today, amid growing fears about the prevalence of heavy metal pollution nationwide.

Besides the Chinese government the United States Chamber of Commerce and others are also responsible for promoting trade policies that send work to the unsafe and unregulated market that is China. Indeed even when China tried to protect its workers somewhat by giving labor unions more power and protecting workers’ rights, the Chamber of Evil was heavily against it.

Trouble in Toyland: U.S. recession jolts China – Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com

Declining U.S. orders already have contributed to the closure of at least 3,600 toy factories since the beginning of 2008, according to the Chinese government, leaving hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers suddenly out of work in this sector alone. Some of the shutdowns have triggered violent protests, a situation that could worsen if the Western recession drags on through 2009, as many economists are predicting.

“Unemployment in China could deprive a lot of people of their lifeline,” says Hu Xindou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “So it could trigger social instability or even shake the rule of the Communist party.”

As bad as many of these factory jobs probably were (low pay, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, anti-labor union) it’s a bad situation because these workers have no where else to turn to. Obviously, I’m not a fan of the authoritarian Chinese government so this protest could be the start of something that will “shake their rule” but what would replace it? I’m getting ahead of myself I realize. It looks like the government is going to have to do some spending on social programs and find a sector to reintergrate these workers into. Maybe putting them to work in the “greening of China” would be one option.

You know you’re pretty messed up as a corporation when you’re more extreme than the authoritarian Chinese government in which you have your operations in. Ole Wolff Electronics decided to dismiss workers instead of recognizing the union they formed in response to the issues they have with this corporation. 

Loong-Yu explains that courts on two levels have since ordered Ole Wolff Electronics to reinstate the six sacked workers, but the factory continues to deny them access.

‘The dismissed workers are in a desperate situation. Some of them can’t get new jobs because the factory still has their work permits. The District People’s Court court found in favour of the workers in November 2007, but the company refuses to follow the court ruling and still won’t recognise the union,’ says Loong-Yu.

As a result, the acting chairperson of the union, Jiang Qianqiu, contacted 3F in Denmark for help. The Danish union contacted the company’s CEO with a request to comply with the court order and recognise the union.

You have the Chinese goverment ordering a corporation based in Denmark to reinstate workers! This matches the irony of the US Chamber of Commerce compalining when China tried to implement some labor protections for workers in China. The Chinese government should kick Ole Wolff out of the country if they refuse to comply.

I happened to come across this article that Wal-Mart is going to sign collective contracts at all it’s stores in China. I bet the evil US Chamber of Commerce is shivering over this one.

The announcement in the Workers’ Daily on 31 July came just two weeks after Wal-Mart signed its first collective wage agreement in Shenyang, which mandated an eight percent pay increase for all workers this year, with another eight percent next year.

This was soon followed by the signing of similar collective contracts in the Quanzhou store, which formed the first Wal-Mart union in China in August 2006, and close to 20 other outlets, including those in Shenzhen.

All the agreements reportedly covered remuneration, working hours and paid vacations, labour insurance and welfare benefits, and stipulated that workers should be paid more than the local minimum wage.

Technorati : china, wal-mart

I really find this ironic.

Rising costs are starting to eat into what American managers fearfully call the China Price, the once-formidable 40% to 50% cost advantage enjoyed by Chinese manufacturers-and demanded by customers. “Fuel prices just shot up so fast that everyone was caught flat-footed,” says Allen J. Delattre, who heads Accenture’s (ACN) global supply chain practice. “Now logistics costs are an overarching priority.” Richard Sinkin, a San Diego consultant who scouts manufacturing sites in the U.S., Mexico, and China for multinationals, also senses a major strategic shift. “A lot of clients who were thinking about going to China are now saying, Not at these prices,’” says Sinkin. “The high cost of fuel is going to radically transform the way people look at the geography of their manufacturing.”

Well I guess the rise in oil prices has a silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. However, if manufacturing were to begin to return to American shores, don’t think that corporations won’t still be looking to cut costs at the expense of workers anyway. I think too many of them got used to what they were able to get away with in China.

Technorati : china, oil