Chinese workers engaged in a strike at some Japanese companies in Dalian, China. These factories belong to Canon, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Toto, Itojin..

The strike first emerged in Canon’s factory in Dalian on September, 9. At 3:00PM of the same day, the organizer of the strike once reached an agreement with Japanese management to increase monthly salary from $90 to $110. 20 minutes after the agreement, the deputy major of Dalian visited the company and declared that the strike was illegal and the salary of workers shouldn’t have been changed because of the illegal strike. Japanese management agreed with the deputy major and decided to maintain the salary level on September, 10. At the night of the same day, police entered the factory and didn’t allow workers to sleep unless they signed the agreement for keeping the salary. Thousands of workers slept on the street because the interferene of police. On September 12, police interfered again and declared that the government would fire those workers who didn’t sign the agreement. The government would also bar other companies in Dalian from hiring those fired workers later. Workers then decided to strike again at the same night. Workers in about another dozen of factories (most of them belong to Japanese companies mentioned above) joined the strike. The total number of workers in the strike once reached 30, 000. Majority of them are young female workers with age from 17 to 23.

The newest development includes
1. Japanese management finally decided to increase the monthly salary to around $ 100. The original target of workers was $150.
2. Two organizers of the strike have been arrested by local police.
3. The local government has agreed to provide compensation the loss of the strike to Canon. Some say the total compensation will reach $2.5 million.
4. The local government at the economic development zone has come up with some new rules allowing investors putting less social security and insurance money into the common reserve fund of workers in order to lower the “burden” of investors due to the higher salary level of workers.

Background:
1. The average salary of workers in the economic development zone of Dalian is still around $75, upon which workers merely survive in this big city.
2. No report at all in the public Chinese news media. Nothing has been found in Japanese and other international media either.
3. Most of information above is from different major forums in China. Some of them may not be accurate.
4. At the first time since the economic reform of China(1978), overseas investors have experienced the "shortage" of general workers in relatively developed east and south coast of China. The biggest gap between the supply and demand is for young female migrant workers. However the excessive labors in the rural area amount to 100-200 million!
5. The salary of the general or migrant workers in China has been stayed at the same level for more than 10 years.
6. The price of Chinese products sold in US is incredibly low. No major overall inflation in US has been seen although the energy price has climbed to the new high and the US economy has stayed healthy for the most of time in the last 10 years.

Question: If the income level of workers hasn't improved for 10 years while the economy has been booming at the same time, can we consider it as a healthy economy? Where did the money go?

Take a look at the Gini index of China, 0.41(2003), 0.46(2005)!
Gini index of US and Japan are 0.4 and 0.25 respectively. Gini index of major developed European countries is around 0.3, while the index for major Latin American countries is around 0.5. The index of newly developed area such as South Korean and Taiwan is around 0.3.
Looks like China is approaching the Latin American level...I hope it's not a starting point for a LatinAmericanized Chinese economy, a LatinAmericanized Chinese crime structure, a LatinAmericanized Maoist revolution!