Opacity thy name is China. When the whole world is asking and getting transparency in every field, it is China which keeps all its activities closed from the gaze of the world. Behind all the shining roads and buildings and tawdry products, there is an inferno that stinks which has made the lives of the workers a hell. Some twenty-five years ago, a delegation of the trade union leaders had gone to meet to the then Indian Union Labour Minister P A Sangma, who had just returned from China. Those trade union leaders were living in a make-believe world as far as China was concerned and were waxing eloquent about her. However, when the late Sangma told them about the miserable conditions of Chinese workers, who had no social security and were deprived of even basic amenities of life, they were stunned with shock. Now the whole world has come to know that China is not only the butcher of human rights, but she is also the worst violator of the workers’ rights.
There is a China Watch Labour Group, which has made a...