China's Lahu minority has for centuries lived in the Yunnan hills bordering Burma. The hills have kept the Lahu safe and secluded but also poor and malnourished. Now forty-six ten-year old Lahu girls are sent to an elite Chinese primary school where they will learn to speak Chinese and enter mainstream Chinese society. Can the girls do well at the school yet maintain their cultural identity?
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We follow labor researcher Zhang Yaozu as he visits laid-off workers in northeast China, once the nation's industrial hub and now due to the privatization of state-owned enterprises called China's Rust Belt.
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The Lao Gai are the largest gulags of our times, providing the slave labour helping to propel China's economy. Rare images smuggled out reveal the brutal conditions inside the camps.
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In the past six years, infant birth defects in China have increased by an unprecedented 40%. This rise is being blamed on pollution from factories. Now green campaigners are taking on the multinationals.
"The untreated waste is pumped out secretly at night", states activist Wu Deng Ming, pointing at a water outlet leading from a factory into a river. "People living along the river have enlarged livers", claims one local. They suffer from: "loss of appetite or cancer and all sorts of terminal diseases". Although strong laws governing pollution exist, these are regularly flouted. "Some local officials give protection to polluters", claims Ma Jun. In an attempt to put pressure on polluters, campaigners are naming and shaming guilty companies online. "We let people know that this company, with such a popular brand, is violated waste water discharge standards". There are also signs that central government is taking the problem more seriously. "The state is very serious about environmental problems", states official Zhou Linbo. Some factories have been closed down. But strong resistance to change still exists. "Polluting factories hire hooligans to deal with people they believe will damage their reputation", claims Wu Deng Ming. Other companies threaten to relocate to Vietnam or Indonesia where; "we can still discharge more of less freely".
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