cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/51210214

The Middle East conflict is putting pressure on factory orders, costs and jobs in China’s export-driven economy.

It’s a sombre gathering in the backstreets of one of China’s biggest manufacturing hubs, where workers are smoking under a tree in front of storefronts advertising temporary factory jobs.

“No-one understands what our life is like,” says one man who is unwilling to be named.

“We work and work and have no life. Please help us,” another adds - a rare, risky plea to a foreign journalist.

They seem desperate, struggling to earn enough to send money home, as they cope with the massive shifts in Chinese manufacturing, from cheap, mass-produced goods to automated advanced tech.

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In Foshan, in the southern industrial province of Guangdong, the workers’ best opportunity is plastered in bright red lettering in front of them: a few weeks of moulding plastic, or screwing together parts of a mobile phone, for 18 to 20 yuan an hour, which amounts to just a few dollars or pounds.

“I’m going to try and find work elsewhere,” says another worker from a rural province. Most are well over 40 years old, and frustrated at yet more uncertainty.

This is one of the reasons Beijing is calling for the war to end.

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China’s enviable oil reserves and the lead it has taken in renewables and electric cars have insulated it from the worst effects of the fuel crisis. But even as it puts on a show of steady strength, the war is choking the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route, and that is causing more pain to a sluggish Chinese economy that is heavily relying on exports.

“Costs have gone up around 20%,” says one trader who didn’t want to be named, as she organises workers to move cylinders of fabric from the back of a truck to a line of carts, which will take them to local factories to be cut and sewn into clothes for the world’s retailers, from Zara to Shein to Temu.

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This is the world’s largest fabric market – in Guangzhou, an hour’s drive from Foshan - and the streets pulse with motorbikes laden with rolls of vibrant textiles, as small vans and trucks honk their way through to pick up and drop off loads. The shops are hard to distinguish among the piles of nylon, polyester and silk, but each owner and seller had a similar story.

Their trade needs a cheap and steady supply of oil in the form of petrochemicals, without which they cannot produce fabric. And higher oil prices are now hitting them hard. “It means fewer orders,” says one trader over tea in a back room office. He adds that some customers are refusing to pay more and rolls of fabric are piling up in the warehouse.

If they don’t pass the rising cost on to the customer, they absorb it themselves. That is hard for those who’re already working with slim margins.

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From the sidelines China is calling for a ceasefire, while pushing its friend Iran towards the negotiating table … says William Figueroa, professor of History and International Relations at the University of Groningen. “It wants to show both the United States and its partners in the region that it’s serious about its commitments there - and that obviously has a global audience.”

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But this means little to the workers in Foshan, who are frustrated by stagnant wages.

One of them shows his pass from the Canton Fair. “I cleaned the toilets,” he says, laughing as he takes another puff of his cigarette.

He got paid 150 yuan ($20; £14.80) for his 14-hour work day.

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