The Sacrifice Behind China's Economic Boom

Andreas Seibert

The epic story of China's modernization has often been told in numbers. Once dormant, insulated and ravaged by war and social upheaval, China is now the world's third biggest economy with more mobile-phone users and, by the end of this year, more car sales than anywhere else on the planet. But the story behind those numbers, of the coal miners and assembly-line workers, of the parents and children they've left behind and the arduous journeys made out of sheer desperation to find work, has rarely been given the same attention as the country's impressive economic achievements....

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