Why China uses North Korean workers - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

The news China is using large amounts of North Korean workers sounds at first counterintuitive. Why is the world's most populated country importing labor. Business analyst Shaun Rein explains it to NPR's Marketplace.

Marketplace:

Horwich: One thing that China -- biggest country on earth -- should not be short of, you would think, is people. So what's in this for China? 

Rein: It's sort of counterintuitive for China, but because of the one-child policy, when workers retire, there are just fewer and fewer people that are available to work in factories. The second thing is because of Leon Panetta's pivot towards Asia for the U.S. defense, China's very worried about instability in North Korea and reunification between the North and South, because that would put an American ally right on China's borders. So China's going to do whatever it can to prop up a North Korean regime and really create a buffer zone against the United States.

More at NPR's Marketplace, including the audio.


Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch with us or fill in our speakers' request form. 


On Thursday we organize the next Google+ Hangout on China. When you are interested, you can pick one of our planned subjects, and register for our broadcast here.  


Shaun is the author of "The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends that Will Disrupt the World". You can read more about Shaun Rein and his book at Storify.