The Hardscrabble Business of Chinese Manufacturing in Africa
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HBR IdeaCast
Sun’s written down what she’s discovered through her factory visits and research, in her new book, The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa. They go straight as teenagers into working their way up factories in China, and they learn the business from the ground up, and they slowly accumulate their own savings and start their own factories, often as smaller subcontractors to bigger factories in China. And so, I tell the story of three women in Lesotho who actually start as factory workers and then get involved in the union movement as a way to actually make a difference in the lives of themselves and their friends who all work in Asian-owned factories Lesotho.